


Another Day in Paradise

by SoulSurvivor_36



Series: The Lives We Make for Ourselves [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mark of Cain, Men of Letters Bunker, Rough Sex, Season/Series 09, Season/Series 09 Spoilers, Shower Sex, Swearing, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:31:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 50,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9834749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulSurvivor_36/pseuds/SoulSurvivor_36
Summary: As Dean spirals down into the intensified effects of the Mark of Cain, will Delilah be able to help him keep a firm hold on reality and his identity?  Or will she spiral down with him into the world of violence and death of none other than the "Father of Murder"?





	1. Wish You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! Here's the latest in the epic journey of Delilah McAllister and her involvement with the Winchesters. As always, my original intention of intergrating my original character to the series while staying as close to canon as possible means that much of this is of course based directly on the series, so if things sound familiar... that's why.  
> This story spans pre-S09E17 Mother's Little Helper to the end of S09E19 Alex, Annie, Alexis, Ann. Since this is going on the end of the season, be warned that major story arc spoilers do occur in this fic. (Just watch season 9... it's a good one)
> 
> I can't believe how far Delilah has come, and how much she's grown since that first fic I wrote last year, and I hope you've enjoyed watching her come into her own as a hunter and her growing relationship with Dean.
> 
> For those of you who enjoy music, all my stories in this series include music, and sometimes the songs become an integral part of the story-telling. If you are on spotify, you can follow my playlist where I put every song mentioned in chronological order from the stories. Here's the link to that: https://play.spotify.com/user/22v4kbg5x7xipqfpa63jsf5lq/playlist/6Vc01L3ZxyXeD3gu0kwFN8
> 
> Anyways, enough chatter, read, enjoy, comment :-)

_Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do?_

_Oh lord, there must be something you can say…_

_Oh, think twice, ‘cause it’s another day for_

_You and me in paradise,_

_Just think about it._

 

 

“I dunno Sam.  Something just feels… off about him.  I’m worried.”

“Don’t be.  He’ll bounce back.”

It had been a week since the confrontation with Magnus, since Crowley’s betrayal, and since both finding and losing the First Blade.  Dean had turned into a research machine.  She had never seen him so focused on finding anything like he had been this past week.  She and Sam could barely keep up, no matter how caffeinated they were.  He only stopped for Baby – finishing the work on the paint, eating and sleeping… and for the latter two, Delilah was convinced that if she didn’t put food in front of him, or drag him to his bed, he would keep right on working.  Even then, although she fell asleep with him at her side, not once had he still been there when she woke up, even if she woke up in the middle of the night.

Once, she got up to seek him out.  She walked into the library to find him sitting alone at the first table, surrounded by books and files.  He was staring off into space, not focused on anything at all.  She walked up the steps and noticed he was rubbing his right arm, right where the Mark of Cain was seared into his skin.  She remembered how it had glowed red when he held the blade, had it burned too?  She walked up to him, his eyes continuing to stare straight ahead, and she leaned back against the table, facing him, which is when he startled out of whatever waking nightmare he had been trapped in and saw her.

“Come back to bed, Dean.”

“Mmmm, in a minute.  I just need to look up a couple of things first.”

Delilah looked at his tired face: his eyes bloodshot, the skin tight around the green orbs, his short hair tousled, like he’d been running his hands through it.  She took his hand in hers and she could feel it shaking, and she worried even more.

She tilted her head to the side, catching his stare with the movement and keeping eye contact.  She gave him a smile and leaned forward off the table, turning her body to sit in his lap.  She slipped her arms around his shoulders, running her fingers through the short hair at the back of his head, and a glimmer of interest shone in his eyes as they roved over her face and settled on her lips.

She bent forward and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him slowly as his hands moved up her back and thigh, holding her close.  She held the back of his neck and rubbed the corded muscles there while she brought her lips close to his ear.

“Come to bed,” she whispered.

He followed her back to his room and they tumbled into bed together, shedding their clothes like so many times before, but it felt different, like his body was running on automatic, his mind worlds away as they thrust and heaved and moaned.

She lay in his arms afterwards, her back pressed against his chest, his arm slung over her hips, and she felt relieved hearing his even breathing as he slept, at last.  She had hoped he would be able to catch up on some lost hours, but she woke up the next day to an empty bed again, Dean having slipped away and gone back to his obsessive search for the elusive Abaddon.

Now she was in Sam’s room, sitting on his bed while he worked on his laptop, set up on his desk.  Sam had taken to working in his room in the past couple of days, claiming that he just couldn’t focus with Dean’s nervous energy filling the library: he couldn’t just sit still, he’d stand and walk around and come and go with new files and place old files back, never really settling anywhere for too long.  It was driving Sam nuts and the same behaviour had pushed Delilah to come seek the younger brother out to express her concerns, which he had dismissed so readily.

Delilah’s eyes absent-mindedly drifted to his screen and fell on one of the program windows that always seemed to be running on his and his brother’s computer; green lines of script slowly flashing their way up the screen on one side.  She’d been wondering what that did for a while now, so she asked him.  He straightened up from his hunched position and half turned in his chair to look at her.

“It’s a computer program that searches the internet and police databases for keywords and events related to the supernatural.  It basically keeps track of strange deaths and accidents that could be potential cases.”

Delilah’s eyes grew round in surprise.  “You’re kidding!  Holy shit.”

Sam chuckled, “Yeah, when it finds something, the information pops up here,” he pointed to one of the windows, currently it was dark. “And then we can go read the web page or article or whatever it was that caught the program’s attention.”

“You designed this yourself?  I thought you were pre-law, not MIT, what the hell, Sam?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking back at the screen, a shy smile on his face making him look like a teenager, even with the five o’clock shadow.  “Actually, it was our friend Ash who designed it to track demons, I just tweaked it here and there to include all paranormal activity.”

Ash.  She hadn’t heard that name before.  Sam didn’t lose his smile though, maybe this was someone she’d get to meet if the circumstances were right.

“And where is the elusive genius?  Does he have a permanent address like you guys, or does he bounce around?”

“Uh, yeah.  He’s in Heaven.”

Delilah frowned, oops, but at the same time, Sam started laughing, completely throwing her off.  This was not typical Winchester behaviour when it came to talking about friends who had passed away.  He turned towards her and she raised her eyebrows.  Sam smiled, then sighed before he looked at the ceiling, pensively.  For a second she thought he wasn’t going to tell her anything after all, but then he looked right at her.  “So, Dean and I got killed this one time.”

“What the fuck, Sam?” Delilah interrupted, “Who the hell starts a story that way?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, laughing, “it’s how it starts.  Anyways, so we died and somehow got sent to Heaven.  Ash found us up there, and helped us out.  He’s still playing the system, drinking beer and having a great time.  It was great to see him that way.”

Delilah watched him quietly, setting aside, for the thousandth time, the nagging voice in her head saying none of it was real, and taking away what was important: there was a Heaven, beyond it being where the angels live, and people who got there were happy.  Maybe her mom was up there, playing forever with her baby girl.  A single tear dropped from her eyes, and she wiped it away quickly before Sam saw it.

She got up, glancing at the time on her phone and declaring it bedtime.  She headed out into the hallway and turned the corner, heading up towards the war room, to see if she could convince Dean to join her.  She paused in the doorway to the library and watched him.  He was standing at the middle table, searching through an accordion folder with his back to her.  She leaned in the library archway just watching him for a moment, a soft tingling running all over her skin and settling in her chest.  She smiled, even when she was worried about him, she couldn’t help but feel like this was the way they were meant to be.  He was wearing his dark blue-grey shirt with his ratty old jeans that were torn in a few places from long ago hunts.  His broad shoulders were hunched, his head bent down, focused on his task while his fingers leafed through the documents, looking for something.  Delilah sighed, unsure what else she could possibly do to help Dean get through whatever it was that had started him on this obsessive search.  She pushed off from the wall and walked over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder as she stepped into his line of vision.  He looked up at her, tearing his eyes away from his work.

“You going to sleep tonight?” she asked him, knowing what his answer would be.

“Soon, just need to find this one thing first.”

His voice was rough and a little groggy, like he had something stuck in his throat.  She rubbed the back of his neck and leaned up to kiss him goodnight, trying to ignore the taste of whiskey on his lips.  She left the way she had come and headed to her room to fall asleep on her own.

~

She got up around 5 a.m. the next day, showered, and headed to the kitchen for some coffee.  The pot was nearly empty so she threw out what was left and started a fresh one.  She sat at the table with her tablet and a bowl of cereal while she waited for it to be done.  By the time it beeped, she was already finished eating, so she cleaned her bowl, poured herself a cup with her usual amount of sugar, and then poured a second cup, black.  She headed out to the library.

He was still there, standing at the first table, files spread out around him, a large book, closed in front of him, the object of his attention.  Delilah handed him the cup of black coffee and sat back against the edge of the table.

“Thanks,” he said, sounding even groggier than before she went to bed.  She took in his appearance; he was still wearing the same shirt as the night before, his usual five o’clock shadow turned into a three-day growth, his eyes looking strained.  He took a swallow of coffee and she stretched up to kiss his cheek before walking around the table to sit in the chair across from him, holding her steaming cup in her hands.  There was a large reel-to-reel magnetic tape recorder set up on the table in front of her.  A couple days ago, she and Sam had listened to the audio file left behind by the Men of Letters as they investigated a demon possession case back in the early fifties.  They had suspected the involvement of the Knights of Hell based on a symbol found at the scene.  But what Dean felt was important enough about it to dig it out again was beyond her.

“Did you get any sleep?” she asked him.

“Uh, no.  I was… uh.” Dean frowned looking perplexed.

“Babe, seriously.  What do you hope to achieve here if you can’t even think straight?”

He finished the rest of his coffee in one gulp that must have seared his throat and bent back down over the large, red covered volume in front of him: ‘ _The Book of Demonology_.’

She was watching him turn to the index, looking for something, when Sam walked in, fully dressed, his blue coat on his back and a bag and his backpack slung over his shoulder.  They greeted each other then, Sam turned to frown at his brother.

“Catch any shut-eye last night?”

Dean didn’t bother looking up from the book.  “Nope,” he answered.

“Alright, you can sleep in the car then.”

Delilah looked away from Dean and up at Sam, “A case?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, putting a printed news article down on the table, Dean leaned away from his book to look at it.  Sam went on, “A first grade teacher came home and killed her husband.”

Delilah raised her eyebrows, _ok, interesting_.  Dean didn’t seem impressed though.

“Maybe she snapped.  Ankle biters can do that to you.

He turned back to his book.  The coffee must have helped his coherence, because he was almost sounding normal again, if a bit blasé.

“Dude,” Sam said, sounding exasperated with Dean’s indifference, “She pounded him into ground chuck.”

“So, what’re you thinking?” he asked automatically, still looking at something in the book, his eyes moving back and forth as he skimmed the page.  He straightened up and turned his back to Sam to go look through that accordion file from the night before.  She kept her eyes on him, unable to stop from worrying about him and his indifference towards Sam’s proposed case.  When did Dean ever say no to hunting?

Sam’s words dragged her attention back to him, “Dean, look.  I want to find Abaddon, too, but we’ve been combing through this stuff for days.”

“Maybe we missed something,” mumbled Dean, his back still turned to them.

“And maybe, there are better ways to spend our time, than just spin our wh…”

“Maybe we don’t _have_ time!” Dean burst out angrily suddenly, making Delilah jump.  Where did the anger come from?

“What’s up with you?” Sam dared to ask the question she had been throwing back and forth in her own mind over the past few days.  Dean’s mumbled, _nothing_ , did not reassure her in the least though.  Sam wasn’t fooled either and he pushed on, coming further into the room. “See, because ever since you killed Magnus, you’ve been acting… sort of… obsessed.”

Dean finally turned around and looked at Sam straight on, sparing Delilah a quick glance as she sat in her chair, playing with the tear in her jeans nervously.

“Well, maybe,” answered Dean calmly, “because I want an end to all this.” Sam shifted uncomfortably, Dean went on, his voice cool and rational. “Maybe because if we find Abaddon, then Crowley ponies up the first blade, and we kill her, and him both.  So, what you call being ‘obsessed,’ I call, doing my job.  But if you and Lilah want to head out, go right ahead.”

Sam and Delilah exchanged a look as Dean walked around his brother and returned to his spot at the table and sat down.  Was he sending her away?

“Are you sure, Dean?” she asked him, “I don’t mind helping you out with this.”

“I’m fine.  You should go with Sam, he might need back up.”

She stood up from her chair, confused, but decided to give him his space nonetheless.  “I’ll be ready in five, Sam,” she said, walking over to Dean and kissing the top of his head before walking out the back door of the library and down the steps towards her room, half hoping he would catch up to her to give her a proper goodbye kiss… but he didn’t.

She packed her bag with a few days’ worth of clothes, just to be safe, as well as her black dress pants and a couple of shirts.  She grabbed her messenger bag and stuffed in her tablet, angel blade, silver knife and her Smith and Wesson revolver, checking the clip and the safety not quite out of habit yet, but getting there.

Sam was waiting for her in the hallway that led to the garage.  She threw her jean jacket on her back and slung her messenger bag across her shoulders, holding on to her travel bag in her right hand.  Delilah walked up the garage stairs, the lights turning on around her, followed by Sam.  She quickly spotted Baby, fully restored to a glossy black, sitting in her usual spot.  She wasn’t heading for the Impala though, she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the keys to the Dart.  “Sam,” she said turning around and tossing him the keys. He looked at her perplexed.

“Don’t feel like driving?” he asked, his eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“It’s your car, I figured you’d want to drive.”

He looked down at the keys in his hand then threw them back to her.  She caught them easily and he just shrugged.  “It was never really my car anyways.  It was just sitting in a used car lot.”

Delilah’s eyes grew wide, “Seriously?  You stole it?”

“I needed a car to get around, and that one was about to be sold for scrap anyways.  We got new plates, Dean fixed it up and gave it a new paint job.”

“Unbelievable,” Delilah muttered as she made for the trunk, putting her bags inside while Sam laughed at her discomfort. “Credit card fraud, identity theft, grand theft auto… It’s a wonder you guys got into Heaven at all.”

Sam laughed even louder.  “Don’t forget a string of B&Es too,” he added as he sat down in the passenger seat, adjusting it for his long legs.

Delilah just shook her head again and sat down in the driver’s seat.  A thought crossed her mind as she glanced at the glossy Impala in the parking spot next to her, reaching for the handle on her door, “Wait… is Baby stolen too?”

Sam smiled again, knowingly, and she suddenly felt wary of his response.  “Naw.  Dad gave her to Dean when he turned 21.  And Dad bought her in ’73,” he kept his eyes on her face as she nodded and twisted the key in the ignition.  A grin stretched his features as he added, “After Dean told him that’s what he should get.”

She whipped her head around to look at him in complete disbelief. “What the fuck, Sam?”

He burst out laughing.  _Time travel_ was all he managed to get out and she swore a blue streak under her breath as they drove out of the garage, headed to Illinois, Sam’s peals bouncing around the car.

~

It was a seven-hour drive to Milton, where the teacher went apeshit on her husband.  They stopped somewhere in Missouri, at a roadside diner not far from the Illinois state line.  Delilah bit into her chicken wrap and chewed.  She was trying to focus on easy, repetitive actions now that she didn’t have the road to distract her from her concerns.

“You’ve been quiet,” Sam said, interrupting her thoughts, “Something on your mind?”

Delilah sighed.  “Just… worried about Dean.  I don’t think we should have left him on his own.”

Sam chuckled, “I know he doesn’t always act like it, but he’s a grown man.  He’ll be fine.”

“This whole week, like you said, since Magnus… it’s like he’s a different person.”

“I get it,” Sam said, giving her a reassuring smile, “But it’s not the first time we hit a rough patch.  Dean’s tough, he’ll be okay.  He just needs his space.”

“Ok, Sam.”  Delilah took a deep breath, trying to vent some of the worry, time to focus on something else.  “So, tell me about this case.”

“It’s like I said, first grade teacher, Mrs. Young, came home and beat her husband to death.”

“Bare hands?”

“No, she used a candlestick.”

Delilah looked up with a smirk, “Mrs. Peacock, in the ballroom, with the candlestick?”

Sam looked at her deadpan, “See, I don’t need my brother when I’ve got you to make lame jokes instead.”

Delilah looked at him outraged, and tossed a fry at him, both of them laughing.  She shook her head, feeling ridiculous.  “Fine, jackass.  What are we dealing with then?”

“I dunno, I’m thinking maybe demonic possession.”

A discomforting thought flickered in her head, “I hope we’re not dealing with changelings again.”

Sam frowned.  “I don’t think so.  Mrs. Young doesn’t have kids.”

“Yeah, but she’s a teacher.  That’s access to a whole lot of food.”

He frowned, too, considering the idea, looking out the window then back at her, “It’d have to be a pretty inept changeling.  No access to food locked in a cell.  We’ll know more when we get there.”

They finished their food, paid, and hit the road again, arriving in Milton just past 1 p.m.  They pulled up at a motel and got a double room, bringing their bags in and dumping them on the beds.  Delilah stretched, groaning while her bones and muscles struggled to unkink themselves.  She disappeared into the washroom, splashing cold water onto her face while looking forlornly at the shower, wishing she could hop under the warm jets, but knowing they had to get to work.  When she stepped out of the bathroom, Sam was standing at the foot of his bed, white dress shirt tucked into his charcoal pants as he tied his brass coloured, geometric patterned tie.  She walked over to where she had left her suitcase and frowned when she spotted what looked like an old, leather bound book sitting on her bed.  She reached down and picked it up, realizing from the noise of things scuffing around, that it was really a box.  She glanced at Sam, questioningly.  He was suddenly looking embarrassed and he scratched behind his ear.

“What’s this?” Delilah asked him, suspiciously.

“Um, no big deal.  It’s just a little something, for your birthday.  Happy birthday.”

She frowned, she knew it was useless asking Sam how he knew it was her birthday so instead she just glared at him, “Stalker.  That’s a little creepy, just so you…”

She stopped talking when she opened the book cover to reveal the inside of the box.  There was a jumble of laminated IDs each with her picture and a different alias: Delilah Jett, U.S. Marshall, D. Morissette, Forensics analyst… and a few more.  As she shifted them around she spotted a black leather case sitting under all the laminates.  She took it in her hand and opened it to reveal her own FBI badge… Agent Delilah Wilson.

She was speechless as she turned around and looked at Sam.  He cleared his throat and pulled something else out of his bag and handed it to her.  She took the black leather gun holster from him.

“You’ve become a really good hunter in the past few months and I was just thinking it was time you had the tools to make you more credible.  Tucking your gun in your belt is fine when you have a jacket, but a lot of the outfits you wear… um, well they don’t hide it well, so I figured a holster would look more, uh… professional.”

Delilah was feeling a little shy and embarrassed by his attention to detail and smiled at the tall, long haired man, “Sam Winchester… you hitting on me?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“What?” Sam said, looking startled and panicky suddenly, then his face changed and settled into the annoyed look he usually reserved for Dean when he was being teased.  “You’re an idiot,” he said, shaking his head and turning to the small desk in the corner where he had laid out his weapons.  “Illinois doesn’t allow open carry, so you’ll have to wear something that hides it for now,” he said as he checked his gun clip and tucked his pearl handled Colt in the back of his belt.

She smiled and walked over to him, putting her hand on his arm and stretching up as high as she could go to kiss his cheek.

“Thanks, Sam.  This is probably the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

She turned away from him and went back to her suitcase, pulling her gun from her messenger bag and fitting it into the holster.  She quickly chose an outfit for the day: black straight leg pants with a grey polyester blouse and a black suit jacket that would do a good job at covering the gun.  With Sam still in the corner looking over his weapons, she changed quickly, tucking in her shirt and pulling out her long hair to cascade down her back.  She clipped the gun holster to her black, military grade, nylon belt – the only material she found that could reliably hold her angel blade.  She left the blade in her bag though, since the FBI cover didn’t really allow for it.  She did, however, slip her silver knife into her grey, high-heel ankle boot, just to be safe, then she quickly transferred her phone and keys from her jeans to her new outfit.  She picked up her FBI badge and looked at it lovingly before tucking it into her jacket pocket.  She was Agent Delilah Wilson, badass hunter.  She chuckled at her silly thoughts and packed away the book box containing the other IDs into her suitcase.

They pulled up to the Sheriff’s Department not long afterwards, the afternoon sun beating down on the parking lot, making this February 23rd feel like the beginning of spring.  Delilah left her jean jacket in the car, her suit jacket keeping her plenty warm for the walk to the door.  She followed Sam into the building and they walked up to the front desk.  A young deputy was holding down the fort and Delilah looked around the lobby of the Sheriff’s station.  There were green cushioned chairs lining the wall behind her with windows that gave onto a brightly lit hallway. To the right and through a doorway, there were police officers dealing with the various jobs and paperwork assigned to them, their movement around the desks and open floor space reminding her of a busy anthill.

“I’m Agent Leiter, this is my partner, Agent Wilson.”  Sam flipped open his badge to show the deputy and Delilah did the same, trying to make it look like it wasn’t her first time doing it.  “We’re here about the Mr. Young case.” Sam put away his badge and so did Delilah, while the deputy picked up the phone in front of her.

A minute or so later, they were greeted by the shift sergeant, who also happened to have been the first on the scene.  He was a kind looking man, with a crown of short grey hair and a face lined with the tell-tale wrinkles of middle age.  She placed him in his late fifties.  He handed them the case file on Mr. Young’s murder, and Delilah took it from him, following behind Sam as she perused the information.

The pictures of what was left of Mr. Young were pretty gruesome, the crime scene photos showing blood spatter all over the walls and the television.  Mrs. Young’s clothing, face and hands were covered in blood, and it was clear that not only was she the aggressor, but she also did not stop after the first blow, she just kept hitting him until there was hardly anything left to hit.  Delilah skimmed the autopsy report, not seeing anything that would suggest the supernatural.

The sergeant led them through to the back hallway as Sam asked him questions about Mrs. Young and the incident with her husband.  The first few questions were mostly aimed at the couple’s history: was there any known drug use, or mental illness? Was the husband abusive? and similar questions.  Sergeant Lee seemed to know the couple quite well and answered everything in the negative.  Rick and Karen were two of the most ordinary people you could meet.

Sam glanced back at Delilah, raising his eyebrows, silently asking if she had found anything in the file.  She shook her head, closing the folder.  He switched his line of inquiry to more supernatural related questions, trying to find out what they were dealing with as they approached the closed door marked CELL BLOCK _._

“Anything else, weird, that maybe you felt too odd to include?” Sam asked Sgt. Lee.

“Like?” he asked, turning to look up at Sam, towering over everyone as always.

“Like,” he said, his face suggesting what he was saying was unimportant, “Did you smell sulfur?”

“Why would I smell sulfur?” the sergeant asked, clearly confused as he held open the door to the cell block for Sam and her to walk in.

Sam thanked the man, ever polite.  He pushed on with his demon line of inquiry as she walked ahead of them.

“What about Karen’s eyes?  You notice anything strange?”

She never registered the sergeant’s answer as her brain tried to understand what her eyes were seeing inside the first cell.  Sam and Sgt. Lee saw it a split second after her judging from the whispered, “Oh Lord,” next to her.

There was blood everywhere, smeared on the walls and pooling on the floor beneath the dangling feet of the woman she assumed was Karen Young.  There was a white bed sheet stained with more blood wrapped tightly around her neck, the other end tied to the sprinkler system pipe that ran the length of the cell block.

The sergeant quickly turned back the way they had come to get help, leaving Sam and Delilah to stare at the bloody scene.

Delilah looked again at all the blood pooling under the swinging body and followed it back up to her hands, the fingertips torn and raw like they had been scraped to the bone.  She looked more closely at the blood smears on the walls.  Some seemed to form words, like shell and death, but what it could all possibly mean, she had no clue.

She turned to look at Sam whose facial features were twisted in horror.  He looked at the mess in the cell, then looked away abruptly, clenching his jaw and breathing quickly.  How odd to see Sam lose his composure that way.  It wasn’t long before the cell block erupted in a sea of activity as officers and medics came bustling in, followed by the coroner when it was clear that they were too late to help Mrs. Young.

Sam and Delilah were ushered back to the main desk, as the coroner’s office did their job removing the body.  Sam had regained his composure and managed to find out from the distraught sergeant that the only place Karen had gone the previous day was the grocery store.  They left the sheriff’s department and headed back out to the car.

“Are we still thinking demon possession, here?” Delilah asked as she sat behind the wheel, turning the key in the ignition.

“I don’t know, I didn’t smell sulfur.  It just doesn’t seem to fit.”

“So, what are we looking for at the grocery store then?”

“I’ll see if any of the employees remember seeing her yesterday, you can do a quick sweep around the place, see if we hit EMF or find traces of sulfur.”

Neither of them could find anything out of the ordinary in the small local food market.  The two employees who saw her the day before said she was the same as she always was: smiling, polite, cheerful.  Delilah didn’t get an abnormal reading on the EMF sensor either.

They were stumped.  They headed back to the motel to do some research, maybe dig up a few town skeletons that could be playing tricks on the residents, but Milton had a fairly quiet history, the whole county did in fact.

Delilah did stumble upon a newspaper article from the fifties about a rash of unexplained behaviours among some of the town’s people, but it ended up being attributed to an imbalance in the water’s mineral composition at the time…  _They actually blamed it on the water… I’ll be damned_ , Delilah thought as she closed the window and kept searching.

Nothing new to report, Sam decided to call Dean.  Delilah lay patiently on her bed, her arms crossed under her chin, her legs crossed at the ankles, as she stared at the floor, waiting to hear what Dean thought of their mystery case.  She didn’t have to wait long, the call barely lasting a couple of minutes.  Sam quickly got through the description of the case, then asked his brother how research was going, which led to him hanging up a few seconds later with a frown on his face.

“How’s he doing?” she asked him, the answer clearly all over his face.

“He’s fine,” Sam lied, but Delilah didn’t push.

She rolled over onto her back, her head hanging off the foot of the bed, her knees drawn up and an arm resting over her eyes.  “What do we do now?”

“Keep looking.  Dean says it sounds like a case of the crazies.”

“I’m starting to agree with him.  I don’t think anything supernatural is happening here Sam.  Just some batshit humans again.”

“Yeah.  If nothing kicks up by morning, we’re outta here.”  He turned in his chair to look at her.  “You hungry?  We can go see what Milton has to offer re: culinary delights.”

Delilah snorted and lifted her arm off her eyes to look at him, “Aunt Norma’s Diner, more than likely in a town this size.”

Sam laughed, and gave her a smile, “Come on, let’s see if Aunt Norma makes birthday cake.”

He stood up and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair and Delilah groaned as she rolled off the bed and picked up her own jacket from where she had draped it over her pillows, and her gun from the bedside dresser.

Sam stepped out of the room and Delilah dug her phone out of her pocket, hoping for a text or a missed call from Dean, anything that showed he remembered she existed, but there was nothing.  She shoved it back in her pocket and followed Sam.

~

She had gotten the name wrong, but the feel was the same as they sat at the counter in Frannie’s Diner.  She had rolled her eyes at Sam, and then at the retro décor, not because it was tacky, but because clearly the place’s style hadn’t been upgraded in 50 years: Formica counters and red padded vinyl stools… the whole nine yards and in serious need of some renovating.

Sam ordered himself a salad and a cup of coffee and she got the special: burger with fries and a cola.  She pulled out her phone, determined to remind the older Winchester of her existence, but couldn’t figure out what to say in a text.  She started and, just as quickly, deleted a slew of messages.

_I miss you._

_You doing OK?_

_Wish you were here._

_You’re worrying me._

_Hope you’re good._

_How’s the research?_

Delilah was growing more and more frustrated and she put her phone down after deleting the last of the failed texts.  She picked at her fries half-heartedly, not really hungry.  The man who had been sitting on her other side left his seat, having paid for his meal, his plate just in her line of vision as she glanced again at her phone.

“You can call him, you know…” said Sam, ever watchful.

“Naw, it’s fine.  I’m just worried for nothing.”

Out of nowhere, a hand reached into the abandoned plate beside her and grabbed a fistful of mashed potatoes.  Delilah turned her head in time to see a teenage boy with dark hair falling in his eyes stuff the potatoes from a stranger’s plate into his mouth.  Delilah’s eyebrows shot straight up.  The boy’s behaviour didn’t go unnoticed by the waitress either.

“Billy!” she said in a hushed cry, “What are you doing? Your mother raise you in a barn?”

Delilah thought she was being very gentle with the pig next to her, but obviously, he didn’t feel that way and burst out angrily.

“Don’t talk to me like that!”

“Hey,” Sam jumped in, “Take it easy.  She’s working hard.”

The teenager was glaring at the counter, breathing hard.  He was clearly agitated.  Delilah turned back towards her plate, but kept an eye on him like he was a time bomb about to go off.  The waitress approached him on the other side of the counter, trying to keep the peace in the restaurant.

“What’s eating you?” she asked him in a concerned whisper, leaning towards him.

The kid looked up at her from under his thick eyebrows and he tipped a glass right off the counter to make it shatter on the ground.  Delilah startled, and looked right at him as he answered the red headed waitress.

“You.  My mom… Him,” he said, turning to glare at Sam with more venom than one could possibly have for a total stranger.

“Buddy,” Sam said, straightening up in his seat, “Give it a rest.” The implied threat clear in his tone.

The look in the teenage Billy’s eyes sent chills down Delilah’s back and made her skin crawl.  There was something wrong about the way he was looking, his eyes dark and… empty.

The waitress called his name and he slowly turned back to look at her.

“I’m going to call your mom, have her come fetch you.”

“No, you’re not.”

Everything happened so fast, Delilah could not stop it, only react.  Billy grabbed the knife from the plate beside hers and stabbed it down into the waitress’s hand, pinning it to the counter.  Delilah jumped out of her seat at the same time as Sam, grabbing the kid’s arm as he took hold of a second utensil.  She twisted his wrist, forcing him around, and knocked the fork from his fingers as she changed the angle of her hold, applying pressure to his already wrenched elbow, making him fall to the ground and following him down to keep him pinned with her knee.  He kept struggling against her, though, and he was in real danger of breaking his own arm if he kept it up.

“Cool it, kid!” she hissed at him.

He became more docile after a moment, but she didn’t dare look away, in case he tried anything.  Time stood still as she kept the attacker immobilized, Sam tending to the waitress’s hand, and before she knew it, the local law had shown up and taken over, arresting Billy and putting him in the back of a cruiser.

“It’s damn lucky you were here agents,” said Sergeant Lee, in a daze.  “From the way Carol-Ann tells it, coulda been a whole lot worse.”  He paused, looking around the dark street with wide, uncertain eyes.  “What the hell is going on around here?” he asked himself.

Sam stepped in, “Sergeant, if you don’t mind, I’d like to interview the kid.”

Delilah was certain the sergeant was going to ask questions, why would the FBI want to interview a suspect in an unrelated case?  But to her surprise, he didn’t question it at all.  In fact, he left them with a cryptic statement about something they needed to see.

Confused, they hopped back into the Blue Devil, and followed the police cruiser holding Billy back to the sheriff’s station.

⭐


	2. Mother's Little Helper

There were four of them now… What the hell was going on?  Delilah looked around at the four cells on the block, a full house.  Any more crazies pop up and they’d have to start doubling up in the cells, and somehow, Delilah didn’t think that’d be a good idea.  One of them, a man, had bloody fingertips like Mrs. Young had had, and he was busy smearing his blood on the walls in the same way, his back to them.  Another man was repeatedly slamming his forehead against his cell bars, blood blossoming on his skin from the abuse.  In a third cell, a woman was sitting, staring absently into the air in front of her while she hummed quietly to herself… who knew what she had done that had made the sheriff’s department take her in.  And then there was Billy, sitting in his cell, glaring at Sam and the sergeant with a look of absolute hate, that empty stare continuing to unnerve her.  “What’s happening here?” Delilah mused.  She hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud until Sgt. Lee answered.

“I was hoping you’d tell me.  You’re the ones that mentioned weird.”

Delilah turned and was surprised to see the older man looking right at her.  Clearly, he was expecting an answer.  She pedalled quickly, trying to come up with what to say, taken by surprise that the man had chosen to address her instead of Sam, regardless of her silence up to now.  She glanced at Sam standing behind the sergeant facing Billy’s cell.  With a small nod of his head, she understood that he wanted time alone with the kid.  She had to distract the sergeant.  What to tell him? Redirect.

“Where do they all come from?” she asked, clinging to the one question going through her head that did not directly refer to the supernatural.  She slowly started walking towards the exit of the cell block, the sergeant following her.

“They’re all locals.  Four of the straightest arrows you’d ever meet,” he told her, looking around at the four people behind the bars of the cells like he just couldn’t understand what they were doing there.  “Apparently, they’ve been acting like this for days.”

If they’re local, then it suggests the source of the problem is local too, but it’s not wide spread… What do all these people have in common?

“I’d like to look at the case files.  Uh, at least, whatever you have so far.  Were the arrest reports completed for the four new cases?”

“We can certainly go have a look at those.  If you want, you can interview the deputies who picked them up.”

The sergeant grabbed the door handle from behind her, opening it for her and she turned into the hallway, sparing Sam a last look to make sure everything was fine.  She just glimpsed his flask of holy water before stepping out.

“Do you know them well?” Delilah asked the sergeant, starting to feel more comfortable in her role as they walked down the bright corridor, heading back to the front desk so he could get her those files.

“It’s a small town, a lot of what we do is get to know the neighbours and build a community.  I know every one of those people… at least I thought I did.  I don’t know who those folks are in those cells.”  The sergeant had a blank, disturbed look in his eyes.

“So, do they share anything in common?  Church?  School?  A book club?” she asked him, looking for the thread to pull on to unravel this mystery, but no luck.  As far as he knew, they did not.

Delilah heard a commotion coming from the other side of the glass, and she saw a teenage girl standing at the front desk, looking very agitated.  “What now?” the sergeant said as he hurried forward to intervene, Delilah right behind him.  She watched as the sergeant expertly calmed down the girl who turned out to be Billy’s girlfriend.  How she knew he had been arrested though was a mystery since they hadn’t even advised the kid’s mother yet.  It turns out, someone at the diner had captured the whole thing on video and posted it to their Facebook page.  She watched the girl’s phone, wide-eyed, as she subdued Billy with her wrist lock.  She had to admit that it looked kinda cool… although she stopped short of asking the girl to send her the video link… _FBI Delilah, be professional._

The sergeant wanted to take the girl’s statement and he invited her to sit in, Delilah silently praised friendly cops.  There wasn’t much to learn from Kimberly, though.  She had been on the phone with Billy a half hour before he showed up at the diner, and although he had sounded frustrated, because of the fight with his mom, if she hadn’t seen the video, she never would have believed that he was even capable of stabbing someone.  The only other potentially pertinent piece of information Delilah got from the interview was that he had been trying to hitch a ride to Kimberly’s place.  When Delilah asked if she knew if anybody had stopped, Kimberly told her that a van had picked him up.  That’s the last thing he told her before he hung up.

Following the interview, Sgt. Lee accompanied Delilah back to the front desk, where he set her up with a table off to the side of the main room.  It was somewhat private, like a nook in the wall, but she was also able to listen to the things going on around her, in case she picked up on some chatter the officers might find too odd to record officially.

Sam joined her at the table shortly, looking disturbed: he was frowning, his jaw tight, his lips a thin line, lost deep in his own thoughts.  She looked up from reading the arrest reports – nothing was jumping out at her, just like with the report on Mrs. Young.  Sam sat down across from her, but wasn’t focusing on anything.  She bent down, trying to catch his eye and when that didn’t get his attention, she snapped her fingers.  He shook himself and looked up.

“You okay, Sam?” she asked him, keeping her voice down.

“Um, yeah.”

“Did he say something?  Is it demons after all?”

“No.  No, I don’t think so.”  He turned in his chair a bit and leaned forward, his arms on the table, keeping his voice down too.  “Do you remember, I told you about Lucifer?”

Delilah quickly ran through the conversation they’d had over dinner once, many months back.  “Um, how you were trapped with him for, like, a year?”

“Yeah, but it was just my soul.  That whole year, my body was topside.”

“Okay… so, you were in two places at once?” she asked, trying to treat this logically, like any new information on a case, some things were just too… out there though.

“I guess so.  Dean had Death restore my soul to my body when he found out, so I do remember both what happened in the cage and what my body did.”

 _Oh._  She would never get used to these stories… why couldn’t the Winchesters have normal stories about their pasts?  ‘ _So this one time, I went to the movies, right?_ ’ No! Theirs were, ‘ _So this one time, I DIED,’ or ‘I WENT TO HELL,’ or ‘I hung out with LUCIFER for a year’_ _or ‘Dean had a nice chat with DEATH_.’ A shrink would have a field day, until they realized it was all real.

“So why are you bringing this up?  Is something ringing a bell?”

Sam looked at her a moment, “These people, they’re acting on their basic instincts… the littlest things can set them off.  Kind of like me, when I was soulless.”

Delilah took a deep breath and leaned on the table, closer to Sam, lowering her voice even more, “Are you telling me, that for a year, you went around killing people?”

“No, not… not directly anyways.” Delilah raised her eyebrows, but was trying really hard to keep an open mind, Sam? A killer? No way.  “When I was soulless, it was like… that little voice telling you not to do something because it’s wrong… it just wasn’t there.  I was still a hunter, I just, didn’t feel fear, o-or empathy.  I did a few things I’m not proud of.”

“Such as?

She had to know… what right did she have to ask him that?  But, she had to know, right there, in the middle of a busy police station… she just couldn’t let this one go.  Sam looked at her, sadness, or shame maybe, in his hazel eyes, before he looked down at the table.  He rubbed his forehead like he was getting a headache.

“A lot of it was just, I didn’t think anything was wrong, everything was a means to an end.  I used a shapeshifter baby as bait.  I hooked up with some random girl when Dean had been abducted… come to think of it, I got laid that year more than…” he stopped abruptly and looked at her, as if remembering suddenly who he was talking to.

Delilah laughed, “Don’t worry about me, Sam.  Getting laid is healthy if you ask me.  Sounds like you can learn a lesson from soulless you… except for the bait bit, that’s… yeah.”

Sam didn’t react like she had hoped, she thought she would have lightened the mood.  If promiscuity was his biggest concern, it was seriously no big deal, but he was looking more serious than ever, staring right at her.

“I let Dean get turned into a vampire just so we could find out more about the nest.”

Delilah sat back in her chair.  Dean was a vampire?  No, couldn’t be.  How can someone be a vampire and then not be?  So many questions jumbled in her head, mixing with outrage that Sam would do that, and the reminder that this happened, and was over.  Her brain was liable to just shut down if this kept going.  A deputy walked by their table and she remembered suddenly where she was, and why they were there.  _So, Dean had been a vampire... store that into the WTF? category and let’s get back to work_.

“Ok.  Let’s assume you’re right and these people lost their souls… how does that happen?”

Sam seemed to take a deep breath, and he lost some of the tension lines on his forehead.  “What I think, when I think souls, is crossroads deals.  But these people aren’t winning the lotto.”

“So, what else could it be?”

“I really don’t know.”

Having exhausted that line of inquiry, Delilah shared with Sam what she had discovered from Kimberly and from the anorexic arrest reports.  Sam frowned.

“How ‘bout you call Dean, see if he has any ideas.  I’m gonna go find Sgt. Lee.  I’m thinking the grocery store is our best lead right now, I’ll see if we can get access to the surveillance.”

Sam stood up, smoothing his tie, and walked off towards the front desk.  Delilah took a few seconds to breathe, absorb some of what Sam had just told her; maybe it was a good thing that she was only getting these stories in little doses, she’d probably run away screaming otherwise.  She grabbed her phone, glad to have a good excuse to talk to Dean.  She hated to admit it, but she was dying to hear his voice.  She tapped his contact and put the phone to her ear.  On the third ring, she figured he wouldn’t pick up, but as the fourth ring started, his voice suddenly cut in.

“Hey.”

“Hey, you.  How’s the research going?” she asked him, unable to stop the smile from spreading on her face.

“It’s going.”

She waited, thinking there would be more, but other than the faint music playing in the background, there was nothing.  Delilah frowned – she had watched him doing research non-stop for the past six days, never once had he put on music.

“Dea…”

“So, you guys got anything new with the case?”

Delilah sighed, “Sam has a theory.  He thinks people are losing their souls.”

“People?” he asked, “As in more than just Mrs. Manson?”

“Yeah, we’re up to a handful of these…” things? People? Soulless shells?

“And Sam thinks they have no souls?”

“Yeah, they’re acting on instinct: aggressive, violent, impulsive.”

“Sounds like a Gold’s gym but, he’s the expert.  So, crossroads demon? Making deals and taking people’s souls?”

“Um… no, we already thought of that, but if these people are making deals, they are seriously getting the short end of the stick.”

There was a pause, and Delilah could swear she heard someone talking… where was he?

“Ok, well, uh… That was my best swing,” he said, sounding unconcerned.

Delilah had lost her smile, the comfort of hearing his voice drowned once more by her worry.  She held her phone a little more tightly and closed her eyes.  “How are you?  Did you eat anything today?” she asked, her voice soft.  There was another long pause and when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything, Delilah sighed, “We could really use your help down here, babe.”

“Yeah, uh… I know, I just… uh,” Delilah was crushed, she knew the answer.  “I’m getting close, Lilah,” _Just need to find this one thing._.. “I can’t drop the ball on Abaddon, right now.”

Delilah felt like a vice closing on her heart, she breathed in, trying to shake it loose. “Alright, Dean.” She paused, “Be safe.  I mi…”

“Yeah,” he said, interrupting her and the call disconnected.

Delilah put her phone down on the table and fought against the prickling in her eyes.  She understood how important his search for Abaddon was.  Hell, she’d had her bouts of obsessive researching back in college too, so she could understand that too, but she really did not like this feeling of being a bother.  Well, when she got back, she’d just have to remind him the perks of having her around.  She straightened up, and took a deep breath, blowing out some of her frustration.  She pulled the case files closer, deciding to read over the reports in case there was something she missed.  Sam came back to the nook with a new folder containing stills from the camera outside the grocery store.  She told him that Dean didn’t have anything to add to their idea pool.

It was going on 9 p.m. when she got up and stretched her back.  They had been at it for less than an hour, but her frustration at the lack of leads, and maybe her conversation with Dean, was only growing.  Maybe hunting down some coffee would help clear her head.  She was walking around the front desk when a single word drew her attention: _demons_.  Delilah turned her head sharply and looked at the woman standing at the counter talking to a young, red-headed deputy, who was looking exasperated.

“Yes,” the woman said sharply, clearly annoyed, “Demons.  Are you deaf?”  Delilah frowned, looking at her more closely.  She was wearing a teal coat with a matching felt pillbox hat pinned to her short strawberry blonde locks.  She looked like she was in her late 60s, a dead ringer for Shirley Maclaine, too.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the deputy, clearly humouring her. “You know, we’re going to take care of those demons, right away.  Do you need a ride home or something?”

The lady visibly bristled, straightening up, her eyes wide with outrage. “Don’t patronize me, you little turd!” she nearly shouted.

Delilah felt this would be a good time to interject.  “Thank you, Deputy… Parks,” Delilah read off his name tag, pinned to his light brown uniform shirt. “I can take it from here.” The woman turned to look at her, still belligerent.  Delilah smiled at her and pulled out her FBI badge.  “I’m Agent Wilson.”  Delilah waited patiently as the woman looked at her badge more closely.  When she was done, Delilah put it back in her pocket.  “I was just getting some coffee, would you care to join me, Ms…?”

The woman looked at Delilah, suspiciously, but then relented, “Wilkinson.  Tea for me.”

Delilah smiled, genuinely feeling pleased.  This FBI stint wasn’t so bad.  Together they found a coffee dispensing vending machine with Red Rose tea packets sitting on the nearby table with milk, cream and sugar.  Delilah bought herself a coffee and poured hot water for Ms. Wilkinson.  As she stirred in her sugar and the woman opened the packet to steep her tea, Delilah decided to broach the conversation.

“I’m very curious about these demons, Ms. Wilkinson.  Would you tell me about them?”

The woman didn’t say anything, just stared at Delilah with a calculating look in her eyes.  She waited patiently.  “Well, agent… they came to Milton fifty-six years ago…” Delilah took a sip of her coffee and continued to wait, smiling at Ms. Wilkinson encouragingly.  Suddenly, the look of annoyance was back on the older woman’s face.  “I say, ‘demons’ and you don’t bat an eye, when everyone else around here thinks I’m nuts on toast!”

Delilah’s mind panicked, what was she supposed to answer to that?  “Um… I like to keep an open mind, you know?”

A look of realization suddenly came over the woman’s face.  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

“One of what?” Delilah asked, worried she thought she was a demon.

“The Men of Letters.”

Delilah nearly dropped her cup of coffee from shock.  All she could think of saying was, “I think there’s someone you should meet.”

~

Delilah thought Sam looked even more shocked than she had been when Julia Wilkinson suggested again that they were Men of Letters.

Turns out the Men of Letters had come to Milton back in 1958 – the same year that newspaper article talked about something being in the water and causing a rash of odd behaviours… the same year the entire organization ceased to exist because of Abaddon.  Sam and Delilah sat, entranced, as Julia told them all about the lovely couple who had come masquerading as a priest and a nun: Henry and Josie, none other than Sam’s paternal grandfather, and the woman who became Abaddon’s vessel, at least so she gathered from Sam’s probing.

Julia had been a nun back then, and they had come because a fellow sister from her convent had killed two people before jumping off the bell tower.  Julia had been asked to show Henry and Josie around.  They had been particularly interested in a symbol they had found scratched into Sister Mary Catherine’s wall.  They thought it was a crest of some sort, something about Knights of Hell.

That night, Julia had left her room because she heard odd noises.  She discovered the Mother Superior dragging a struggling girl towards the basement.  Before she could run away, she had been knocked out and woke up tied to a chair.  There had been others with her, but one-by-one, they had been taken into the next room and never came back.  Each time a person was taken away, there was a blinding, white light that shone through the cracks around the door.  She would have gone the same way, only Josie and Henry had come to the rescue, reciting Latin incantations at her fellow sisters who had been involved in whatever ritual was happening behind the door.  She had managed to get away, and she hid while the Men of Letters forced black smoke out of their bodies.

Then, Mother Superior had come out of the other room, and though Henry had started up his chanting again, it had had no effect on her.  She knocked him out, like he was nothing more than a fly.  Josie pleaded with her to not harm him, and offered up herself instead.  The demon inside Mother Superior agreed in the end, and the black smoke transferred from her, to Josie.  Henry never knew.  The two had left the following day, and shortly afterwards, Julia left the order.

Her story finished, Delilah had one, very important question, seeking confirmation for what she suspected.  “Did you happen to hear the demon’s name?”

Julia turned her grey-green eyes on her.  “Abaddon,” she said.

Delilah and Sam exchanged a look, an excited and terrified look.  They had managed to stumble upon the very thing they had been looking for back in Kansas… only they didn’t have the First Blade, and they didn’t have Dean.

Sam turned back towards Julia.  “Did you ever see exactly what she was doing down there?”

“No,” she said, “but whatever it was she was doing at St-Bonaventure, it seems to be happening again.”

“The convent’s name was St-Bonaventure?” asked Sam, suddenly agitated.

He grabbed the folder that contained the surveillance photos of the grocery store and rifled through them quickly, looking for something.  His face transformed from a look of consternation, to hope as he looked at something in the folder.  He thanked Ms. Wilkinson earnestly and, noticing the late hour – it was going on midnight, offered to take her anywhere she needed.  She declined, with a smile for the tall Winchester, and put her coat back on, walking out of the station like her mission had been accomplished.

Delilah shook her head.  “Talk about a stroke of luck.”

Sam smiled and nodded his head to the side, “You’d be surprised how often those happen.  Check this out.”

He handed her the picture he had been staring at before.  It was clearly the façade of the small grocery store they had gone to earlier that day, the last place Mrs. Young had visited before killing her husband so violently.  Sam pointed to a large, dark blue panel van with the words ‘St-Bonaventure’ written on the back.

“I’ll be goddamned,” said Delilah, awestruck, remembering what Kimberly had said about a van picking up Billy before he showed up at the diner.  She put the picture down and grabbed her phone off the table, opening the web browser.  “So, St-Bonaventure Convent is just on the outskirts of town,” she told Sam, “It shut down a few years ago.”  She put down her phone, thinking about the enormity of what Julia Wilkinson had just told them.  “What do you think Abaddon was up to?”

Sam took the picture back, and returned it to the file, gathering everything together neatly.  “Let’s go find out.”

She looked at him, unsure.  “Should we tell Dean?  If it is Abaddon, he’s the only one who can take her out.”

Sam pursed his lips, thinking.  “If it is Abaddon, we’ll call him, but we should go scope things out first.”

She still wasn’t convinced.  She worried her lower lip, debating sending Dean a text regardless what Sam said, but remembering his brusque manner earlier, she decided against it.  Best to have proof before they disturb his work again.

“Fine,” she said to Sam, standing up beside him. “But if we’re going to go crawl around abandoned buildings, I want to get out of these heels.”

~

They pulled up to the fenced off convent three quarters of an hour later, parking on the deserted street.  Delilah looked out the windshield of the bright blue car at the remains of the large, boarded up, stone building in front of them.  A weathered sign on the brown winter lawn read: St-Bonaventure Convent.  She sat back in the driver’s seat, pulling the keys out of the ignition.

“Hell of a birthday, Sam.  You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

Sam’s lips twitched into a momentary smile before climbing out of the car, staring ahead at the building, analyzing the situation.  Delilah sighed and followed him.  At the motel, they had changed back into their civilian clothing: jeans, combat boots and a striped, three-quarter sleeve, cotton shirt with a boat neck for her, jeans and an orange and dark grey plaid shirt for him.  They were armed to the teeth too, just in case, Delilah loading her gun with devil’s trap bullets and sliding her angel blade in place at her hip.  She also hid a few spells in her jean jacket pockets along with her FBI badge – something she’d be carrying around with her at all times from now on.  Sam tossed her a small flashlight and they moved closer to the chain link fence.  The faint light cast by the streetlamp shined down on the St-Bonaventure van parked under the stone awning of the main door.

The chain link gate wasn’t chained together like it had seemed from far, it was just leaned shut.  Carefully, Sam pushed it open and slipped through the narrow gap.  Delilah followed him, turning on her own flashlight and looking around.  There was no light shining through the chinks in the boards covering the windows of the convent, the place completely dark.  As they neared the door, and the parked van, Delilah quickly tipped her flashlight into the vehicle’s back window, to see if there was anything inside, while Sam moved towards the building’s door.  It looked like a maintenance van, filled with tools and construction odds and ends, nothing that stood out as particularly ominous, or demony.  She moved up to the door with Sam.  The window had been broken with a stone or a brick regardless of the security mesh that covered it on the outside.

Sam gave her the hand signal for all clear.  He opened the door with a slight squeak and took point.  Delilah followed behind and to his right, making sure to keep checking behind them, like Dean had taught her.  By the light of their flashlights, the place looked dismal and beyond abandoned.  It was clear that after the church had left the convent, squatters had taken up residence, looking for a quiet place to stay on cold nights, or maybe a secluded spot to shoot up.  There were newspapers, ratty old blankets and broken furniture all along the corridor.  There was nothing left on the walls as far as religious paraphernalia went, somehow though they had been spared tagging: the plaster and wood paneling remaining unpainted.  Some of the sections of the convent looked like they had been closed off with wire mesh panels, maybe the building had become unsafe, or a renovation project had been stopped mid-way through in the midst of closing.

They reached the end of the narrow entrance hallway.  Sam shone his light through an open door to the left.  There were steps leading down to the basement.  Delilah was looking right, through an open archway that led to a large room with several doors and a grand staircase going up.  Sam looked at her and made a series of hand gestures: he was going to go to the basement while she swept the main floor.  The meeting point was right there in the hall in ten minutes.  She nodded, to show she understood and confirmed ten minutes, then she turned around to face the new room.  She took out her gun and held it pointed at the ground, her finger along the barrel as she walked around, sweeping the flashlight around the room.  She looked at the staircase leading to the second floor, it was blocked off by those construction panels, the upstairs probably unsafe.  The area didn’t take very long to scout.  Most of the hallways and rooms branching off from the main section were either blocked or locked.  After her unavailing efforts to open doors or move obstacles, Delilah declared the area unoccupied, except by mice and other vermin, and put her gun away.

As far as artefacts went, she only found what others had left behind: the religious odds and ends removed from their original locations and scattered irreverently and more blankets, empty food packets and old newspapers from people who had sought refuge in the abandoned building.  She bent down and picked up an old diner paper placemat that had kids’ drawings on the back.  Flashes of her adolescence returned: her father unable to pay the rent, all their things littering the sidewalk, huddling in an alley.  Delilah shook herself.  It hadn’t been for long, maybe a day at most, but she remembered that feeling of vulnerability from having nowhere to call home.

She put the paper down and checked her phone.  Time to meet up with Sam.  She turned around and headed back to the hallway.  There was no one there.  Delilah frowned.  If Sam wasn’t back yet, it meant either he found something, or he was in trouble.  She glanced down the steps but they turned right on a landing, so there was nothing much to see.  She didn’t want to just call out, that would give her away if Sam needed assistance.  Torn by uncertainty, she strained her ear, trying to listen for something that would indicate he needed help.

Then she heard it.  A grunt and the sound of something falling over.

Delilah pulled her angel blade from her belt and held it in her left hand, pointing it at the ground in front of her while she slowly, quietly descended the stairs.  She took her gun out again, unclipping the safety, and held it right-handed, ready to shoot at the attacker.  She reached the landing and a woman’s voice reached her ears.  Up till then, she had been hoping that the sounds of struggling had been coming from the demon being dispatched by Sam, but from what she heard now, it didn’t seem that way.

Delilah’s brain raced as she reached the last couple of steps: she had no idea what was happening, how many demons were involved, where Sam was in relation to the speaking demon, and worst of all, if they were dealing with Abaddon herself… nothing she had with her would save Sam if that were the case.  If this was Abaddon, they were royally fucked.

Delilah flattened herself against the little wall.  She noticed a faint light in the room, like if someone had strung up some of those clear blue twinkle lights.  She thanked her lucky stars that the room wasn’t pitch black, and listened.  With light and the people speaking, she had a chance.  She would give it a minute, figure out what the situation was and then she’d strike.  As she listened, it became clear that the demon was talking to Sam, telling him all about the grand plan.

“If you can’t convince them, make ‘em.”

There was a pause, and then to her immense relief, as she stood against the bricks trying to see with her ears, Sam spoke.  “She’s turning souls… into demons?”

“Mmmm, demon army,” responded the woman’s voice, “unbeatable, loyal only to her.”

Delilah was relieved.  Clearly, they were talking _about_ Abaddon, so unless she was using the third person dramatically, she wasn’t there herself.  Regular demons, she and Sam could take care of.  If Sam spoke again, she could locate him.

“At this rate,” he said, a painful groan reaching her ears, making her stomach uneasy, “should only take a couple million years. Have fun with that.”

Sam was nearby, she could tell that much even if he did sound like he was in pain.  She listened again for the demon, determined to end this.

“You think I’m the only one doing this?”

Shit.  She was close too, if Delilah got this wrong, Sam could end up in the crosshairs, or the demon could grab him as a shield.  Delilah took a steadying breath.  _Focus.  Listen.  Wait for an opening_.

“We have factories spread throughout.  Worry not though, victory is nigh.  And we’d like you to be on our team.  Recruitment is easy.  I just have to rip your soul… out of your body.”

_Sam!  Go Delilah, now!_

She turned into the room, pointing the gun straight ahead, finger on the trigger.  Everything slowed down as she located Sam, leaning against a column, out of harm’s way.  She looked at where she thought the demon was, and didn’t hesitate, even when she saw the black and white nun’s habit and Sam’s knife held in her hand.  She exhaled and pulled the trigger, shooting the demon right in the chest.  The nun with the middle-aged face and big blue eyes looked down at the spec of blood that bloomed on the white collar of her habit and then looked back up at Delilah, laughing.

“Stupid, little girl.  You think you can kill me with a bullet?  Rookie mistake.”

She raised her hand and flicked her fingers, clearly trying to throw Delilah around, like Crowley had the week before.  Delilah smiled at the demon and took the five steps separating them as she raised her angel blade and plunged it into the nun’s sternum, tilting it up into her ribcage, their bodies pressed together.  “Demon trap in your heart, bitch.  Rookie mistake,” she said through clenched teeth as she stared into the golden flashing eyes of the demon as her twisted soul fizzled out of existence like static electricity.

The demon’s lifeless vessel became dead weight and she let it fall to the ground as she pulled her blade away.  She looked around the basement room quickly, but other than the body of a man with white hair and beard lying prone on the ground, there was no one else. She put her gun back in her holster, crouched down and took Sam’s knife from the clenched fist, wiping both it and her blade on the black hem of the empty vessel’s robe.

She turned around as she stood up again and had her first real look at Sam.  He was leaning against the brick foundation pillar, breathing heavily and holding his right side, but otherwise he looked fine, if a bit dishevelled.

“Are you, ok?” she asked him, worried that maybe he had been stabbed.

“Yeah,” he answered, straightening up with a groan, “I fell on something when she attacked me.”

Delilah smiled, and handed him his blade, “Boy, she really knocked you off your feet, then.”

Sam gave her his _you’re not funny_ look and put the knife away in his belt.  He walked past her, gingerly stretching his side.  Delilah turned to follow him and noticed for the first time the source of the lighting in the room.  The faint blue-white glow was coming from five glass jars sitting on a workbench.  Inside the jars were these little spheres emanating glowing energy like miniature stars floating inside the glass.

“What are those?” Delilah asked, as she stood beside Sam.

“Souls,” was all he answered before he grabbed the first jar and opened the lid.  Delilah watched in awe as the little ball of white energy lifted out of the jar and into the air above them.  It hovered a moment and then made for the crack in the wooden boards covering the basement windows.

“What did you just do, Sam?”

“I released it.  It’ll return to its body on its own.”

She turned to look at him, his face tinged in blue from the odd light of the remaining souls.  “It’s that simple?”

Sam nodded and reached for the next jar while Delilah grabbed one as well, pulling off the top and releasing another puff of energy.  When they were done, they were left in the very dark basement of the abandoned convent.  Delilah could feel Sam’s presence as he stood nearby and she contemplated the nature of souls.  Sam had lost and was then reunited with his soul, same as these poor folks in town.  Losing one’s soul makes one impulsive and uninhibited.  It was your soul that was brought to Heaven or Hell, but if your body can keep functioning without it, which one are you?

Delilah took a deep breath, filling her nose with the musty smell of a long-neglected basement.  Sam finally turned his flashlight back on, and they moved out towards the exit, leaving the bodies on the ground to be found at a later date.  Let them puzzle over the sudden reappearance of a nun in Milton town limits.  Together they returned to the car and then on to the motel room where she and Sam crashed into their respective beds completely exhausted.

⭐


	3. Put Your Lights On

_There's a darkness living deep in my soul_

_I still got a purpose to serve_

_So let your light shine, deep into my hole_

_God don't let me lose my nerve_

 

The drive home the next day was one filled with Sam’s focused determination as he called his contacts in the hunter world.  They had found a solid lead in the hunt for Abaddon, and if the network could help shut down some of the collection points for Abaddon’s army, well all the better.  They needed all hands on deck locating and stopping these soul harvesting, demon factories.

“Yeah, thanks Garth.  Keep me posted,” he said as he hung up.

A smile stretched Delilah’s lips as she remembered the friendly werewolf.  She glanced over at the passenger seat just catching Sam’s frown as he looked at his phone, unsure.  “What is it?” she asked him.

“Nothing, just Garth saying he’ll see what he can _sniff out_ … threw me off.”

Delilah started laughing, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he could track down soulless people by smelling them.” She couldn’t help the shiver as she remembered how they could smell emotions and mood too.  “Maybe he can recruit more ‘friendly wolves’ and get them to help out.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” he said, tapping the next contact on his phone, “Werewolves may not hate demons as much as they hate hunters.”

He focused on the phone as he got through another set of social niceties with the next person on his list, before he jumped into the rundown of the situation with soul harvesting.  Delilah couldn’t help but be curious about all these people Sam knew that were also in the life.  He had mentioned them before as an abstract collective, a pool of people she could turn to if she needed help on a hunt, but she wondered, as he spoke to them now, if she’d ever get to meet any of them?  Did Sam and Dean ever interact with that community?  It seemed that this was the first time really that she saw Sam on the phone with someone.  She wondered if all hunters were the lone wolf types like her boys, or if the Winchesters kept away from the other hunters for a reason.

Sam hung up and dialled yet another contact.  Delilah’s ears unintentionally tuned in to his conversation when she heard the difference in his tone.  She glanced at him and was surprised to see a shy smile on his face.

“Yeah, Jody, we’re doing fine, keeping busy.  What about you? Keeping out of trouble?” He paused as he listened to the answer and then burst out laughing.

Whoever this Jody was, she had the unique ability to make Sam come out of his shell, even with all the heavy shit they were dealing with.  She smiled and tuned back out of the conversation, quietly humming to herself as the Blue Devil ate up the miles and miles of road that still separated her from home, and from Dean.

When she finally parked the car in its spot in the garage and pulled the key from the ignition, Delilah sighed with relief.  She got out, stretching all her limbs and looking around at the familiar pre-sixties vehicles parked in the garage alongside her (stolen) Dart and her favourite ’67 Impala that Dean took such good care of.  She ran her hand along the edge of the black trunk.

“Hey Baby, I’m home,” she said, exhausted from the drive.

“I’m gonna go debrief Dean on what we found out,” Sam told her, grabbing his backpack and bag from the trunk of the Dart.

Delilah’s stomach fluttered uncomfortably.  She was surprised to find that she was anxious about seeing Dean.  Maybe after sixteen hours on the road in two days and a hunt, she was just too tired to deal with his bullshit… or worse, with more rejection. She longed to go run at the gym, or do groceries, or anything that would let her move around, but the thought of getting back behind the wheel was just too much.  “I’m going to go see what I can scrounge up for dinner.”

Sam nodded and took off down the steps into the bunker.  At worst, she figured if there was nothing, she could walk to the small grocery store in town.  She dropped off her bags in her room on the way to the kitchen.  She stood in front of the refrigerator trying to figure out what creative meal she could come up with, but her heart wasn’t into it.  Maybe she should just go see him.  It was so frustrating.  Going with the flow was a lot easier when things were good, she had no idea where the fucking river was right now, much less which direction the flow was going.

She grabbed ingredients from the fridge, as well as a beer, and set things out on the stainless-steel island counter.  She swallowed a mouthful of the cold beverage and then pulled down a skillet and a deep saucepan from the hooks above the counter and set some ground beef to brown and some pasta to boil.  They’d just have to settle for a beef and macaroni casserole.  She pulled out the cutting board and a knife to dice the vegetables she had found in the fridge, occasionally pausing to drink her beer.

Something she liked about cooking was the mechanical aspect of putting a familiar recipe together.  It was like a dance: the easy repetitive motions, the automatic nature of them allowing her mind to wander or concentrate depending on the task.  Today, it was almost like meditation, concentrating on each movement to clear her mind, not wanting to really think about anything.  Maybe that’s why Dean surprised her as he walked down into the kitchen.

“Hey,” he said, as he came up to stand across the counter from her.

Delilah worried her lower lip and returned his greeting, unable to stop herself from giving him a quick once over, checking he was alright – it was almost frustrating how her quick glance turned into a lingering stare.  He had just showered, obviously, his short, wet hair sticking up every which way. He was only wearing a black t-shirt with his jeans too.  She tried not to get distracted by his body outline; his broad shoulders stretching the thin cotton, his strong arms exposed, the fabric sticking to the still damp skin of his stomach.

“Sam tells me you kicked some serious ass last night,” he said, crossing his arms on his chest and looking down at the counter.

“Did he?”

“A regular G.I. Jane, coming in gun blazing and everything.”

Delilah shrugged but felt herself warm on the inside from the note of pride in his words.  Dean moved around the counter and leaned up against the edge, facing the stove as she busied herself finishing up the dish so it could bake.  She set a timer and pushed the casserole into the oven.  When she straightened up again, her nerves were suddenly all in a bundle and she grabbed one of the pans trying to ignore the effect he was having on her.  She brought it to the sink nearby, starting the water and dumping soap in there too.  God, why was she so nervous?  Dean brought over the rest of the dishes.

“Thanks,” she said.

Delilah’s stomach was in knots – all week, all she had wanted was for him to be around, to pay attention to her, even for just a moment amidst all the research.  Now that he was giving her his undivided attention, it was like she wanted nothing more than to run away.  “I should’ve been there,” he said, suddenly, breaking the silence.  What was she supposed to say to that?  She didn’t say anything as she stared at the soapy water in the sink.  “I’ve had a lot on my mind, lately,” he added, apologetically.

Delilah took a deep breath, was he opening up to her?  The tightness seemed to loosen a little as hope crept in.

“Anything you wanna talk about?” she encouraged, turning to look at him.  He was just staring at her, the silence stretching on between them, her stomach clenching again.  She gave it another try.  “You know, I’m not your little brother.  You don’t have to act all stoic and tough around me.  You can talk to me.”  Dean continued to not say anything, and the little smidgen of hope that had pushed through before puffed out of existence. _Enough of this_ , Delilah thought, annoyed, as she turned around and grabbed a soapy pan and the rag. “I get it, Dean.  You don’t have to justify yourself.  If all you want is a place to plant your cock, that’s fine, just let me finish getting dinner ready first.”

“You think that’s all I want?” he asked her roughly.

“Look, it’s fine if you do, really,” she paused, taking a breath, trying to avoid looking at him.  She didn’t get to finish her idea.  Suddenly, he grabbed her wrist and turned her around to face him, forcing her back against the edge of the industrial sink as he pressed against her.  His eyes were dark and intense as he looked at her, his mouth opening, hesitating, and then closing again, his lips pursing together in frustration.  Delilah’s heart leapt, lodging itself in her throat as she watched him struggling.  Her own head was a soupy mess, emotions and thoughts running together incoherently and she found herself tongue-tied, too.  All she knew, really, as her eyes ate up the familiar, handsome features, was that she wanted him, more than any other person, ever.  She wanted to be with him and lose herself in him.  She wanted to be there for him and give him what he needed.  She just wished she knew what that was.

She lay her hands on his chest, surprised at how quickly his heart was pounding against his ribs and she stretched up, pressing her lips against his firmly.  His arms wrapped around her, holding her tightly as he parted his lips, kissing her back.  Delilah felt a tingling heat rush through her entire body, all the way to her fingers and toes.  She ran her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, kneading the soft flesh and corded muscles there before hooking her arms around the back of his neck, pressing herself more closely to him, forced up to her tiptoes by his height.  His hands moved over her back and settled on the curve of her ass, pulling her against him roughly.  He lifted her up and turned around, slamming her down onto the island counter, her legs on either side of his hips, their mouths still opening and pressing together as the desperation built up inside of her.  He pulled her against him again, holding up one of her legs and bending forward, forcing her to lean back on one elbow, her other hand holding the back of his neck, the short hair soft against her fingers.  His hands held her tightly, his fingers digging into her leg and the small of her back and she responded in kind, clinging to him as they devoured each other, the world around them fading to irrelevance.

Time stood still, the room fell away and all that was left was them; the feel of his body as she held on to him, the scratch of his scruff against her skin as they kissed and the desperation of knowing that no matter what, it would never be enough, she would always want more.

A sharp, loud ding resounded in the bunker kitchen and abruptly Delilah was brought back to the here and now as Dean pulled away from her lips.  She stared into his eyes as they both tried to catch their breath.

The smell of baked cheese finally broke though the fog of passion and Dean stepped back when she sat up.  She slid off the counter and back onto her feet and slipped on the oven mitts before grabbing the casserole out of the oven and setting it on top of the stove to cool.

“Are you hungry?” she asked Dean quietly, still a little stunned, as she turned the oven off and reached for a spatula, hanging from the rack above the island.

“Starving.”

The deep growl in his voice made her turn around and the spatula clattered to the stainless counter as he grabbed her and slipped an arm behind her knees, lifting her effortlessly in the air.  He carried her to his room, slamming the door shut behind him with his foot and falling into bed with her.

~

Delilah lay on her side, her body satiated and her mind calm.  She sighed, feeling content with Dean’s arm draped over her waist, his heat radiating into her back as he kissed her naked shoulder.  She was starting to feel a little hungry but she wasn’t ready to get up just yet, basking in Dean’s embrace.  She had no idea what time it was, and she didn’t particularly care.

He kissed her shoulder again, his hand gliding up her arm, caressing her smooth skin, making it tingle.  She smiled at his tenderness.  She caught sight of something red out of the corner of her eye: the Mark of Cain on his arm drawing her attention.  She rolled onto her back, taking hold of his hand, twining their fingers.  She looked at his face, his head propped on his arm, his eyes cast down, as he looked at the red scar, too.  He was lost in thought, looking doleful.

She raised her free hand to his chin, laying her thumb on his lower lip and turning his head to look at her.  His eyes shifted focus to her own and she stretched her neck to kiss him.  When she lay her head back down on the pillow, he gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.  Clearly, there was something on his mind, but she had no idea how to get him to talk about what was bothering him.  She let go his chin and her hand dropped down to rest against the tattoo on his chest.

“I wish you’d talk to me.”

Dean’s eyes looked down to their interlaced hands, pensive again.  “Don’t worry about me, I can handle it.”  His voice was low, his stare far away.

She stroked his chest distractedly as she tried to come up with the right words.  “I know you can handle it, Dean.  What I’m saying is… that you don’t have to do this alone.”  His eyes had shifted back up to hers and she pushed on.  “You know, you told Sam when you came back that hunting with him made it easier because you split the bad stuff.” She pulled her hand from his grasp and laid it over the mark just below the bend of his elbow, he looked down as if surprised.  “Let me help you with this one.”

He slowly looked back up at her and took her face in both his hands, pressing her back in the pillows as he bent over her.

“Lilah, you’re already helping me,” he kissed her slowly and she held him against her.  “Right now, it feels like you’re the only thing keeping me sane,” he whispered against her cheek.

He drew back a little and there was tension in his eyes as well as a hint of sadness and she wrapped her arms around his head, guiding him to rest against her shoulder.  She slowly ran her hand through his short hair, stroking him as he held her tightly.  Delilah felt both glad that she was helping and sad that she didn’t know how to do more.  She couldn’t help but think that maybe someone else would be better suited to draw out the bad inside of him that seemed to be at the root of his turmoil.

She held him against her, and resolved to give him time and patience.  Eventually, he would open up to her, when he was ready.

~

Another week went by.  One filled with more research.  This time however, their hunt was fuelled by purpose and direction: they finally knew what they were looking for.  They tracked the soulless, looking for more cases where people were acting out instinctively.  They found a lot.  Now that they could recognize and track the right omens, these demon army recruitment offices were almost obvious.  And they were spread throughout, impossible to tackle them all on their own.

It felt like Sam and Dean were on their phones constantly, and at all hours, communicating the information to the hunter network and dispatching those who were closest.  Delilah not being known in the life yet, her lack of notoriety pleasing Dean, she was on internet duty.  She tracked the omens and signs through Sam’s program, adding post-it after post-it to the paper map of the United States they had spread out on the table in the war room, every time a new lead was found.

Sam had also hacked into the FBI’s facial recognition and tracking system and set up a search for Abaddon’s current vessel by feeding it an old picture of Josie Sands they had found in the archives under pupils.  A couple of days after Sam and Delilah’s return from Milton, they got a hit.  A solid lead that Abaddon was seen just outside of Minneapolis.  They dropped everything and took off, driving the eight hours one shot only for it to be a flop.  If Abaddon had been there, she was long gone.  They returned to the bunker and doubled their efforts.

Dean seemed to be doing well though he hadn’t yet opened up about what was going on with him.  He wasn’t drinking in secret anymore, sticking to beer with his meals mostly and the occasional whiskey as they worked.  He also didn’t seem to phase out as much, she hadn’t caught him sitting and staring off into space since their return from Milton.  He still wasn’t sleeping much though, then again, with all the hustle and bustle of their frenzied search to Abaddon, neither were she and Sam.

The most worrisome thing about him, she had noticed lately, was his rubbing the Mark.  Every now and then, especially when he was concentrating on something else, like finding a pattern to the factory sites, he would start slowly massaging his arm.  She didn’t know if he was doing it because it hurt him, or what, since every time either she or Sam brought it up, he would drag his sleeve back down and pretend nothing was going on.  She didn’t believe him though, and neither did Sam, but as long as Dean wasn’t talking about it, there was nothing they could do but keep working.

~

Delilah’s eyes opened, staring at the dark space beside the bed that she knew contained, even if she couldn’t see them with the lights off, a variety of Dean’s possessions, like his record collection and player, and the desk with the ancient typewriter and the picture of the beautiful blonde holding onto a young child and smiling at the camera: him and his mom.  She reached to the plaster shelf above her head, and felt around for her phone.  She pulled it down and looked at the time.  There was a time when Sunday, 5:30 a.m., had been synonymous with, ‘ _Go the fuck back to sleep, Dee_ ,’ but these days, it seemed like Sunday or Tuesday or any day of the week really was barely more than an arbitrary indicator of time.  Although some services they used in their hunting were not available on Saturdays and Sundays, Sam, Dean and Delilah were just as likely to be up until 3 a.m. on a Wednesday, as they were to get up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday, or at a bar winding down on a Monday afternoon.  Days of the week had completely lost their meaning to Delilah.

She put her phone back on the shelf and rolled over in bed, reaching for where Dean sometimes lay.  He wasn’t there this morning, but as her eyes got used to the dim hallway lighting coming in through the grate in the door, she realized he was sitting on the edge of the bed like he sometimes did when he was putting on his socks and boots, only he wasn’t moving now.  Delilah sat up on the mattress and lay her hand on his bare upper arm.  She could feel the muscles working slightly as he pressed and rubbed his right arm at the elbow.

He turned his head towards her in the dark and stopped his motions.  Delilah scooted forward on her knees and draped herself against his back, kissing his fuzzy cheek.  In the darkness of the room, she just barely made out his quirked lip as he turned his head and shoulders so he could kiss her back.

“Sorry,” he said in his sleep rusty voice, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“That’s ok.  I like waking up next to you.”

He lay his hand on her arm, dangling from his shoulder, and stroked it gently, turning his head towards the door, like someone had called him.  He stood up from the bed, moving out of Delilah’s encircling arms without a word and reached for his robe, draped over the footboard.  She watched him leave, his dark shape first blocking the light from the grill then outlined by the slowly brightening lights in the hallway as it neared 6 a.m. when they would reach full strength.

Delilah worried her lower lip.  There was no hiding that she was concerned.  She didn’t know why he was rubbing the mark suddenly.  Was it a reaction to the environment, like someone’s bum knee hurting when it rains? Or was it a symptom of something much worse?  It didn’t help things that he didn’t want to talk about it.  Maybe if she got him on his own he would be more apt to share.

She stood up by the bed and grabbed Dean’s plaid shirt from the day before where it was lying on the ground and threw it on, the soft cotton covering her down to her thighs.  She buttoned it as she left the room in search of him.  At this time, he would either be in the kitchen getting himself some food and coffee, or washing up.  Not hearing any dish sounds coming from the left, she turned right and headed for the shower room.

She could hear the water starting up as she neared the doorway.  She walked into the anteroom, the odd corner just inside the door less room that concealed the shower space from the outside hallway.  There was already a damp towel hanging on the wall hooks beside Dean’s grey bathrobe, telling her that Sam was up and about too.  She rounded the wall and walked past the toilet stalls moving towards the section where the showers were: the three heads protruding out of the wall in a row into the open room, tiled in white, the water running towards the draining canal in the centre of the floor.

Dean was standing under the middle shower, the hot water running down his naked body, steam coming off him, his skin turning pink.  Delilah stared at him, forgetting her original purpose for being there as she leaned against the outside corner of the anteroom forming the entryway to the shower section, feeling the familiar tingling as her body reacted to the sight of his naked form: his broad shoulders and back narrowing to his hips, the muscles in his back twitching as he ran his hands through his wet hair, his long legs firmly planted as he reached for the bar of soap in the holder in front of him.

Delilah pushed away from the wall and removed the shirt she had borrowed, draping it over the first of the sinks lining the opposite wall from the showers, the mirrors already fogging up.  She walked up behind him as he rubbed the soap over his stomach and chest, still unaware that she was there.  She slipped her arms around his waist, his skin made slippery with the hot water and soap, and he tensed, clearly surprised by the sudden intrusion.  He relaxed quickly though, no doubt realizing it was her.  She leaned the side of her face against his back, closing her eyes, as she slowly smoothed her hands over his familiar shape, reaching up to squeeze his shoulders then gliding down over his chest and his stomach.  She continued her path, her hands roving down his thighs as low as she could go without bending down, then running her nails gently back up to his waist, Dean’s muscles twitching involuntarily.  She flattened her palms again and glided down the centre of his stomach, his muscles tensing as he breathed in sharply when her right hand smoothed down his pelvis and cupped his balls.  She fondled them gently, then moved her hand to wrap it around his hardening cock.  She stroked him, gently at first but more firmly as he became harder.

Dean suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled her around, dousing her briefly in hot water as she moved through the cascade from the shower head.  He slammed her against the warm tiles of the wall and pulled her other wrist up, holding on to both her arms above her head as he looked down at her like a predator getting ready to pounce on his prey.  Her pulse accelerated, her body readying her for the hunter.  He ran his free hand down to her breast, kneading the flesh and rubbing his thumb over the nipple, sending jolts of excitement through her.  He kissed her, the water coming down on his shoulders, his lips demanding and firm and she responded in kind, shivering as the water splashed onto her.  She grazed his lower lip with her teeth and he growled at her, opening his eyes and looking at her intensely.  She felt the tug in her abdomen as the fiercely green irises fixed on her hungrily, the water running down his head and body, making him look almost otherworldly.  Delilah’s heart was racing wildly as Dean let go of her wrists and ran his hands all over her water slicked skin, his mouth pressing against hers relentlessly.

She put her arms around his shoulders as he buried his face in her neck, biting at her collarbone while his hands moved to cup her ass.  She caught his earlobe in her mouth and suckled at it, her right hand moving back down to hold his swollen cock. She gave him a squeeze and he pulled her against him roughly, pressing their bodies together.

Delilah gave him a coy smile and she raised one of her legs high, leaning her bent knee against his side while she squeezed and stroked his cock again.  Dean grabbed her leg, holding it up and she guided him to her wet pussy, feeling it throb with every beat of her heart.  She barely felt the head against her lips that he thrust into her hard, her ecstatic cry bouncing around the shower room.  He thrust into her again, the wall holding her steady as she rose to her tip toes.  He slammed his mouth down on hers as she was pressed back against the hard tile by his body.

Delilah’s insides felt electrified as he pushed into her over and over.  A radiating heat was making its way through her, emanating from where their bodies were joined and she moaned, and gasped as he plowed into her, not giving her the chance to adjust before thrusting again, the sensations just piling on top of the last as she gave in to the ecstasy.  She lost track of his individual actions, only aware of the intoxicating pleasure, her body clamouring for his bruising touch, his grunts driving her wild as his thrusts became harder to control the closer he got to his release.

Somehow, they ended up lying on the hard, tiled floor, the water from the shower drenching her as she slammed herself down on him, her orgasm overtaking her as she bounced on his cock, desperate to make the feeling last.  Suddenly, he pulled her off him, his eyes squeezed shut, unable to hold back his own orgasm.  She stroked him through it, sitting next to him on the wet tiles as the shower continued to splatter around them.

Tapped out, Dean slowly sat up and his stare fixed on her.  His eyelashes were dark and clumped from the water, his eyes looking like clear precious stones in the bright, uncompromising light of the shower room.  She leaned forward to kiss him when he suddenly moved away.  Delilah felt a little confused, and ruffled as he looked around before getting up off the floor, like he was unsure how they got there.

He reached down to help her up, a distracted look on his face that made the last of her short-lived post-sex bliss dissipate and she started to worry.  She turned the water off and followed Dean to where they kept the clean towels, drying herself with the soft, grey terry cloth.  He had wrapped his hips in his own towel and moved back towards the shower room, droplets of water glistening on his shoulders.  Delilah used her towel to remove the excess water from her long hair and looked towards where he’d gone.  Her concern intensified as she saw him standing in front of the mirror at the middle sink, his eyes looking down at the mark on his right arm.

She wrapped her now wet towel around herself and walked back to him.  She leaned back against the sink, facing him, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was still fixating on his arm.  She lay a finger on his jaw and turned his head towards her.  What she saw on his face made her stomach drop; fear and confusion were all over his features, his eyes wide while his eyebrows furrowed, his mouth slack.

“Dean, what’s wrong?” she asked him, reacting to his panicked state.  He put his hand on her hip and scoured her face with his eyes, like he was searching for the answer to a question she did not know.  She raised her right hand and laid it on his neck, her thumb stroking his jaw comfortingly.  “Babe, talk to me,” she pleaded gently.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked her, his voice thick, the reason for his worry catching her completely off guard.

“What?  No!  Why would you think that?”

He cast his eyes down, leaning his hand on the sink, the other still on her hip and he dropped his head onto her shoulder.  Delilah was more confused than ever as she brought her hands up to hold him.  Granted, it had been rough, but they’d had rough sex before, besides, it had been some damn good rough sex.  What was going on in his head?

He straightened up and headed for the exit, but Delilah wasn’t letting him leave without answers.  She hurried after him, passing him and laying a hand in the centre of his chest to stop him.  “Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded.  He was looking down at her, his face set to neutral.  “I want to help you with this, Dean.  Let me in.”

He stared at her a little longer, then took a step back, sighing in frustration.  “I don't know, ok?  It feels like I’m losing my mind.”

“Losing it, how?” she asked, moving closer to him again.

He bent his head down, running his hand through his wet hair, making it stick out at odd angles.  “I keep, remembering… the blade… in my hand.”

He held out his right hand, then closed it in a tight fist, letting out an angry growl that made her startle.  He looked around the room, agitated.  Delilah’s heart thumped out a nervous tattoo.  Dean turned and looked at her, the feral predator look back in his eyes.  “I can’t ok?  I can’t do this.  Just leave me the fuck alone.”

Delilah felt his words like a blow to her face, she was frozen, her brain refusing to accept his words, yet unable to deny that he had said them.  As she watched, the intensity disappeared from his face, replaced by that confusion from before and he turned away his head.  He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then closed it, his lost boy look pulling at her.  He covered the Mark of Cain with his hand and rubbed at it.

Delilah reached for him, but he moved around her and left the washroom, leaving her alone to try to understand what he was going through.  It felt like what he had told her before, about her keeping him sane, was more important now than ever in light of how tenuous his hold was.  Delilah hugged her bare arms, looking around the damp room, hoping that she was up for the task.

~

Delilah walked up the steps into the main hall with the lit-up table.  Working with the Winchesters around it all week, she was starting to understand why they referred to it as the “war room,” the tracking and noting of positions and rallying of hunters really did feel like they were generals planning the movements of their troops in an endless war against evil.

She had taken her time getting dressed after Dean had left her, all her thoughts about what he had told her, and what he hadn’t said, just jumbling in her head and giving her a headache.  Something was wrong with the man she cared about and she had no clue how to help.  It was a terrible feeling, this inability to make everything alright again.

He and Sam were already hard at work tracking Abaddon, Dean walking around the room, a pen between his teeth as he leafed through some printouts, then bending down to scribble a note.  Seeing him acting so normal made her insides squirm, knowing the turmoil he was hiding, even if she didn’t understand its source.  She knew she should do the same; there was so much to do with what they had discovered in Milton, but her heart just wasn’t into it this morning.  She pulled out the chair she had been sitting in for what felt like weeks now and sank onto it, drawing up her feet against the edge of the seat and holding her knees.  She was wearing an oversized, forest green, cable knit sweater, today, over her usual skinny jeans and she burrowed into it like a security blanket while she listened to the boys discussing new leads that sounded like more of the same.

Sam glanced her way and frowned.  He looked like he was going to ask her what was wrong, a question she would prefer to avoid at this point, when she was saved by his phone ringing.  He glanced down at where it was sitting on the table, his frown lines deepening, then picked it up, tapping the talk button.

“Cas?” he asked incredulously into the mic.

Delilah sat up, putting her feet on the ground and leaning her elbows on the table.  Dean looked at his brother sharply, too.  They hadn’t heard from Castiel in months now, not since he’d left the bunker in his search for Metatron, regardless of their trying to reach him.

“W-wait a sec Cas.  I’m gonna put you on speaker.”

Sam put the phone down on the table.  He tapped the speaker button on the screen and they caught the end of what Castiel had been saying, clearly not stopping when Sam had switched audio modes.

“… a massacre,” his deep gravelly voice said, free as always of humour, sarcasm and other minor intonations making him sound cold and inhuman.

“What happened, Cas?” Sam asked, “Are you alright?”

“I arrived after the killings.  Another angel, Hannah, told me what happened.  We were called there by a symbol painted on a wall.  I believe it’s a spell.”

Delilah startled at this, surely it couldn’t be what she had found in the old journal. “Cas, was it the siren sigil?” she asked him, aiming her question at the phone sitting directly between her and Dean.  Their gazes crossed momentarily and he looked away.

“Hello, Delilah.  Yes, it’s similar to what Dean sent me before, but with a few differences.  Hold on…” His voice went soft, like he had pulled away from the phone’s mouth piece.  He went on, his voice going in and out, “I’m sending… a phot… um, …symbol… angels in.”

Sam moved up beside her and turned the computer towards him, clicking a few keys to access his email account.  Within seconds a familiar design painted in red onto a grey cinderblock wall popped up.  Although it differed in a few minor details, the overall design was the same as what she had found before in the journal.

“How did it work?  Is that painted in blood?” she asked.

“Yes, I also detected griffin feathers and bones of a fairy.”

 _Fairies, seriously?  …so not the time to be asking about this_ , she thought as she forced herself back on topic.  At some point, she would have to stop being so surprised at everything.  Delilah glanced at the computer screen again, and she grabbed a nearby piece of paper, and a pencil, scribbling down a quick sketch of the sigil.  At least now she was sure it would work, it took a lot of the guessing out of her modified design.  Sam pulled up a chair and sat down at the computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard and opening program windows while she sketched.

“Honour bar…” Castiel’s mutter came out of the phone, making Delilah look up.  “What’s honourable about a miniature bar in a motel room.”

“Everything,” Dean answered, a crooked little smile on his face.  Delilah watched him fondly, his sweetness breaking through all the stress of the past couple of weeks listening to his angel friend ponder the deep mysteries of humans… and their motel mini-bars.  Delilah found herself smiling too.

Castiel’s voice was tender as he greeted him, warmth creeping into the angel’s usually cool speech, “How are you, Dean?”

The smile fell off Dean’s face, but he sounded cheerful as he answered, putting on a brave face for Castiel, and maybe his brother, who was also looking his way, “I’m fine, Cas.  How ‘bout you?”

The angel on the phone sighed deeply and answered with a wistful lilt, “I miss my wings.  Life on the road… smells.”

Dean chuckled, without humour, no doubt agreeing with Cas’s assessment, but his initial gladness at hearing from his friend clearly dampened.  There was a lull in the conversation and Sam jumped in, getting them all back on track.

“So, what happened with the sigil?” he asked Castiel.

“It emitted a strange resonance,” he said, back to his usual tone, “I was drawn to it, like my brothers and sisters.  When I got there though, they had already been slaughtered.”

“Who set the trap?  Was it Metatron?”

“Metatron was behind the attack, but Gadreel was the one to do the killing.”

All three of them startled at the familiar name, stopping their individual activities and looking at each other.  How did Gadreel end up in cahoots with Metatron?

“Gadreel?” said Sam agitated, “Gadreel is working for Metatron.  For how long?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel answered.

Something dawned on Delilah as a pained look flitted across Dean’s face.  She spoke up, putting her pencil down and looking at the phone in the centre of the table, “Could Metatron be behind Kevin’s death, then?”

Delilah thought back again to that night and the little yellow paper sitting on Kevin’s immobile chest.  Dean’s hands closed into tight fists as he leaned against the table, his entire body tense.

“It would explain a lot,” said the angel on the phone, “and there have been no new prophets… which Metatron could have fixed to his advantage.”

“What advantage does Metatron have in killing angels? This isn’t factions slaughtering each other for dominance.  I don’t understand,” said Delilah, trying once more to manipulate puzzle pieces without seeing the whole picture, a picture of cosmic proportions.  It did explain though where Kevin’s stone tablets had disappeared to.

“Gadreel didn’t kill all of them.  Metatron was recruiting them.  He promised to return those who joined him, to Heaven.”

 _So, Metatron was building an army too_.

“What?” Dean said, “How? I thought that the spell was irreversible?”

“That’s what Crowley said,” Sam spoke softly, aiming his answer at his brother, then raised his voice, “Look, let’s just find Gadreel and… and beat some answers out of him.”

Delilah wasn’t used to hearing Sam get angry, but it was clear that he was holding back his rage, his face tense, his mouth in a thin line.  Something beeped on his laptop drawing his attention back to the screen.

“I think I got something,” he said, his fingers clicking away.  Dean walked over to their side of the table, grabbing Sam’s phone in the process and putting it down between her and his brother.  He put his hand on the back of her chair and leaned down to look at what he had found.  Delilah shifted her gaze to the screen too as Sam explained what they were looking at.  The same symbol had been painted on walls in two other cities.

“What is that?  Where did you find these pictures?” Delilah asked him.

“Active investigations out in Utah.  Crime scene photos from multiple homicides.  All in the last few days.”

Delilah stared at her sketch pensively, letting the conversation continue around her.

“Where were these crime scenes?” asked Castiel on the phone.

“Uh,” Sam stalled looking for the information on his screen, “Baker and Hill Valley.”

“And I’m in Bishop’s Falls, Utah.”

“Looks like most of these crime scenes were in industrial areas.”

“Gadreel is headed north,” concluded Castiel.

“What’s the next big town?” asked Dean.

“There are two,” answered the angel, “Auburn or Ogden.”

“Alright, you take Auburn.  We’ll take Ogden… meet in the middle.”

Delilah suddenly leaned towards the phone, addressing Castiel before he hung up.

“Cas, can you write Gadreel’s name in Enochian?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, can you send me a picture of it?”

Sam turned and looked at her, tilting his head to the side questioningly.  She shook her own head, not ready yet to let him know what she was thinking.  She had to try a few things first.

“Alright, I’ll send it to Sam’s e-mail again.”

The call disconnected, Castiel not bothering to sign-off.  Dean straightened up and walked away, heading down the steps to the kitchen.  Delilah watched him leave, she assumed he was going to assemble his gear for the road.  Sam looked at her, tilting his head sideways again, no trace of that anger from before; could he really be that worried about her?  She looked away tapping her pencil on her sketch of the sigil, hoping he would leave it be.  She was saved by the beeping on his computer: he had received Castiel’s second e-mail.  He put the attachment up on the screen and she quickly transcribed the symbols to her paper.

Sam stood up and took a step away from the table, and then hesitated, standing off to the side, his head turned towards her.  Delilah sighed with relief when he finally just walked out the doorway opposite from where his brother had gone, without saying anything.  She stood up, folding the drawing and tucking it into her jeans’ back pocket, and headed to her room to pack her own gear for the road.

She was feeling rather anxious as she changed out of her baggy sweater and into a three-quarter sleeve shirt better suited for hunting, and a zip-up hoodie under her jean jacket, reflexively pulling her hair out of her collar and twisting it into a loose bun.  They were going up against an angel, and she couldn’t help the knot in her stomach as she remembered what angels were capable of.  She ran through what she remembered from her previous research, before they had become completely engrossed with Abaddon, and made a mental note to grab one of the books she remembered looking at back then.  Utah was a long enough ride for her to brush up on some of the things that were in there.

She was tucking her angel blade into her messenger bag along with her tablet and her gun, making sure her FBI badge was in her jacket pocket, when Dean leaned in the doorway.

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” she told him, “There’s a book I want to get out of the library.  I think it could be useful.”

“You know, if you want to stay here, we can handle this one.”

Delilah stopped and turned to look at him.  His speech sounded off, the tone not quite going with what he had said.  Was he really asking her if she wanted to stay, or was he telling her he didn’t want her to go?

“Why would I not want to come?” she asked him, guarded.

He walked into the room and folded his arms on his chest.  “I know how you feel about angels.  If you want to sit this one out, I get it.”

Delilah couldn’t stop the flash of memory – Adriel tearing into her with her bare hands, the excruciating pain – but she shook it away again and looked at him incredulously.  “This is Gadreel, we’re talking about.  I’m not going to sit idly by while you and Sam go after Kevin’s killer.  Fuck that!”

Dean’s face hardened as he glared at her.  “This isn’t child’s play, Lilah.  He’s dangerous.  I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

 _Here we go!  Same old bullshit, different day_.  Delilah was exasperated, how much longer would he keep beating that dead horse?

“For fuck’s sake, Dean!  I’m not a goddamned porcelain doll.  I’m coming.”

His face suddenly twisted into a snarl, his fists squeezed tightly, his whole body tense, and Delilah felt the bottom drop out of her stomach: it was the same look he’d had holding the blade after killing Magnus.  She took an involuntary step back, and as quickly as it had appeared, the look was gone and replaced by panic.  He glanced down at his now open hands and they were trembling.  He looked back up at her, his whole face begging her for… something.

She took the couple of steps separating them, her alarm replaced by her need to comfort him, and she threw her arms around his neck, holding on to his shoulders tightly.  His arms held on to her too, wrapping around her waist.  He buried his face into the side of her neck, his breathing shaky.

“Please,” he said, his voice muffled in her shoulder.  “I can’t let you get hurt.”

Delilah felt her heart squeeze in her chest almost painfully.  “I’ll stay, Dean,” she said, Dean’s head snapping up in surprise.  “If you stay, too.”

Dean’s face fell and he shook his head, sadly, “Someone’s got to go with Sammy.”

She put her hands on his jaw and held his face gently.  “Then we both go,” she said calmly, but firmly.  “I’m not letting you out of my sight… not like this.”

She leaned up and kissed him.  When she pulled away again, there was anguish in his eyes, but he nodded, letting go of her reluctantly.

⭐


	4. Hold the Line

_Hold the line, love isn’t always on time._

 

They drove to Ogden, Utah, Dean behind the wheel of his Baby, speeding down the interstate with a heavy foot, keeping a weary eye open for speed traps and other obstacles to their purpose.  Ogden was a twelve-hour drive, and they needed to get there as soon as possible, before they lost Gadreel’s trace again.

Dean had remembered an old case from way back that they had dealt with in Ogden.  A witch had summoned a powerful creature from another realm and they had needed particular supplies to send it back.  They had gotten them from a kid who owned a new-agey, smoke shop.

Delilah snorted from her backseat position just behind Sam. “Are you telling me that you can banish powerful beings using cherry scented incense and chanting?”

Sam turned his head and gave her a sideways grin, “Chanting, yes, the cherry incense is for show.” Sam went on more seriously, “Actually, there’re some places that sell hunting supplies, like ingredients for spells that might be harder to get on our own.” He turned back around to face the front then added, “Only thing is, they also tend to sell to whoever wants it, including witches and other nasty customers.  This kid out in Ogden helped us with the case.”

“Yeah,” Dean huffed out, “After we threatened him.  What was his name?” Dean mused once again, searching his memory for a long ago contact.

Delilah pulled out her tablet, preferring a quick internet search to the failings of the human brain.  She found a few stores that sold new age supplies and spiritual aids in the large Utah town.  She told the boys the names of the different stores and both Winchesters recognized _Ian’s Herbal Remedies_ from the list.  She grabbed her phone and gave the store a call, but there was no answer.  It being Sunday, and still relatively early, she resolved to call again after lunch, they would be about halfway there, then.

She called again with no luck, getting the same greeting message apologizing for not answering and inviting her to call again.  The kid had a slow, hushed voice that made him sound halfway between confused and stoned.  She would call again in an hour or so.

In between calls, they stopped for gas and picked up some drive-thru, while Delilah read up on ways to control and trap angels.  The boys knew about holy oil already, and even had a supply in the trunk, but she had also found a trap design, much like the devil’s trap, but specifically meant to hold angels.  Together, they formed a plan to lure and trap Gadreel.  She thought she had figured out the modified angel siren so it would call Gadreel exclusively, but they still needed the ingredients for the spell.  They were hoping to be able to get them from Ian.

As heavy as Dean’s foot was, by the time they rolled into Ogden, it was dark and way past weekend store hours.  Delilah hadn’t managed to reach Ian at the shop.  Sam had also tried to call Castiel, to see if maybe, being closer, he had found anything in Auburn yet, but he also wasn’t answering.  It seemed odd to her that he wouldn’t pick up the phone while on the same hunt as them, but Sam reassured her that Castiel routinely ignored their calls, even before he had learned to use a cell phone.  She had been confused by the strange statement, _how else would you call someone, if not with a phone?_ but she stored that away with her question about fairies: to be asked later.

They pulled up to a darkened store front along a nearly deserted downtown street, the various commerce closed for the night.  Ian’s shop windows were darkened, just like the neighbouring stores and Delilah’s hopes faded that they would be able to get what they needed – unless the Winchesters were desperate enough to break in.  She'd be worried though about busting into a store that sells ingredients for spells to creatures… Ian had to know some pretty intense spells to protect himself and his shop… no matter how stoned he sounded in his greeting message.  It would have to be plan B then: track down Gadreel with good old fashioned police work.  Where the hell were they supposed to start?

Dean spoke his brother’s name, making Delilah look up.  Both of them were looking out the side passenger window at Ian’s Herbal Remedies shop.  Delilah followed their gazes and couldn’t understand what they had seen that was out of place.  The display window was darkened, the dim lights from display cases inside all that she could see, the door closed, there was no movement.

“What are we looking at, guys?” she asked.

Dean turned the key in the ignition and pulled it out, pushing open his door with a squeak at the same time as Sam.  Confused, Delilah quickly grabbed her gun out of her bag and followed them out of the car, clipping her holster to her belt.  The three of them walked up to the door and Sam pushed on it.  To her surprise, it swung open, a bell tinkling from the movement.  Sam and Dean exchanged a quick look and pulled their flashlights out of their pockets, aiming the thin beams into the darkened store.  They also pulled out their guns.

Delilah couldn’t help the increased rate of her pulse as she unclipped her gun and took it in her right hand, pointing it at the ground.  Not having her own flashlight, she stayed close to Dean as they slowly moved into the shop, the brothers sweeping the room, looking for anything out of place.  It looked to Delilah like any number of stores she’d seen selling spiritual aids to wannabe enlightened folks: dream catchers and crystals as well as some clothing and various hippie merch with peace symbols and tie-dye designs.  Sam headed for the back of the store, while she and Dean went right, towards the still lit, glass display counters, his flashlight sweeping over a whole glass shelved wall displaying bongs and hookahs and all sorts of other glass pipes.  In the dim street light coming in through the window, and Dean’s flashlight, the store didn’t look like it had been robbed, or vandalized, the only indicator that anything was wrong at all was the fact that the door had been unlocked.

They moved up to the second glass counter, displaying various jewelry with symbols from all around the world.  She recognized Egyptian ankhs, Pagan pentagrams and Asian yinyangs and then she noticed a few medallions with the anti-possession symbol etched into them and she started believing that maybe Ian really did know about hunters and spells.

“Got an open box of feathers over here,” said Dean’s calm, low voice.

Delilah moved up beside him, his flashlight was aimed at an open plastic case on the floor behind the counter.  She bent down and picked up a smooth blade-shaped, yellow feather, wondering what animal it had come from as she examined it.  She reached for the case to see if there was a label telling her what was what, when she heard a surprised gasp come from the back of the store.  Dean turned his head sharply and she stood up, holding her gun in both her hands, but still aiming it at the ground, her finger along the barrel.

“Dean,” Sam said, aiming his flashlight at the inside of an open cabinet.  There was something hanging on the inside of the door, her gaze just drifting over the displayed outfit as she moved, with Dean, towards it, trying to get a look at what was inside that had startled Sam.  It wasn’t until Dean shone his light directly onto the hanging clothes that she realized what she had been looking at.

There was a body hanging on the back of the door, congealed blood running down the man’s face into his thick brown beard from empty, burnt out eye sockets.  A shiver ran all over her body as she drew up on Dean’s right.  _Angel kill_ , she thought, staring at the corpse and seeing Kevin’s dead body.

“We got to find Gadreel before he lights up the bat signal,” said Dean, while Sam turned away, his jaw clenching.

“I think we need a bat signal of our own,” Delilah said.

Dean turned to look at her, raising his eyebrows, “How?  Gadreel took all the griffin feathers.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  Gimme your flashlight, I’ll go check in the back.”

Dean handed her his flashlight and put his gun away in his belt.

“I’ll see if I can pick up Gadreel’s trail with the surveillance footage,” Sam added, aiming his own flashlight at the two security cameras positioned around the store; one of them looked like it might have the door, and the sidewalk in front of the store, depending on the angle of the lens.

Delilah moved back to behind the glass counter where the open container of feathers was lying on the ground and started searching through the similar ones, piled beside the door to the back store.  Sam and Dean continued into the back, looking for the office so they could look at the camera footage.

The cases were neatly labeled with an assortment of strange names like belladonna, goober dust and other substances.  There was one whole box of bones of various body parts labeled with their animal of origin, including some household animals, but also some more exotic ones from faraway countries.

The label for the box below that one caught her eye: fairy dust.  She put her gun away in its holster and pulled the case out of the pile bringing it to the counter to examine it.  It was quiet in the deserted store, Sam and Dean not making any noise in the back.  She shone the flashlight on the case and opened it with her free hand.  Inside, were neatly organized baggies of different dusts, ranging from white to dark grey but all glittering like fresh snow on a cold day.  Each bag was labelled and her eyebrows shot up her forehead at some of the presumed contents: tink, leprechaun, flying monkey, redcap, elf and a couple more she just couldn’t wrap her head around.  Could this be a collection of ground fairy bones?  Delilah shuddered, but took a few of the bags to bring back to the bunker.

It still left the griffin feathers though.  She replaced the case on top of the other ones and made her way through the door to the back store, where she was hoping to find more stock.

The back of the store wasn’t very big, Ian obviously kept most of his stock out front, but she did find some shelving with more products.  There was a light shining through the open doorway to the office, and she just spied Sam sitting at a desk, his face lit up by a glowing screen, and Dean standing beside him.  She headed for the shelves, moving past the overstock merch ( _More bongs? Seriously?_ ) and found another set of clear plastic cases like in the front.  She quickly read the labels and found one marked _feathers_.  Delilah felt victorious as she pulled it out and looked through it quickly, finding a bag of golden brown feathers almost the length of her forearm labelled _griffin._

She took the bag, tucking it into her jacket pocket with the fairy dust and turned around to head for the office.  The boys were just emerging from inside and she nodded her head at Dean, unable to hold in her smile; things were finally going their way.

They left the store quickly and piled into the Impala, their pace turning frantic as they raced to set up their trap for Gadreel before he could set up his own siren call to the area angels.  They had already found a location for the trap in an old abandoned factory just outside of town, nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains.  The place had fallen into disrepair, but its remoteness served their purposes… because if they were going to get anything out of Gadreel, they could not be overheard or interrupted.

Sam and Delilah worked on painting the siren sigil on one of the inside walls having mixed the griffin feathers and fairy bones in with his and Dean’s blood.  They had been careful to clearly trace Gadreel’s Enochian name within the design and when it started glowing bright blue-white, Delilah knew it was only a matter of time before the angel showed up.

There was no time to lose as the three of them set up the second layer of trap needed to capture Gadreel who would no doubt be on his guard being summoned by the same spell he’d been using.  The Winchesters poured a holy oil ring at one of the factory entrances, the low roof with its parapet would allow Dean to remain hidden until he could drop the flame that would light the holy fire, trapping Gadreel.  Sam was going to be bait, pretending to scout the perimeter of the building as if laying in wait to spring a trap.  Delilah would stay inside the factory.  She was the last line of defence, in case he slipped through the Winchesters’ line and made it inside.  There was a second holy oil ring on the ground in front of the siren sigil.  She was in position to light it up, should Gadreel get that far.

She had already set up the room where they would keep him captive once they caught him, spray painting the angel trap design on the cement ground and placing a chair at its centre, manacles etched with spell work ready to be clapped to his wrists and render him powerless.

Time stretched on interminably as she waited alone in the dark, silent factory.  Waiting for a killer to show up.  Waiting for a fight, or a surrender.  Waiting to get information that would let them piece together Metatron’s plan.  Waiting for a God forsaken angel that could kill all of them if they made a mistake.  But most of all, waiting to get their revenge for Kevin’s murder.

~

There was a sudden clattering of noise coming from the entrance where Sam and Dean were laying in wait for Gadreel.  Delilah held her breath as she heard heavy footsteps headed her way.  She held onto her angel blade tightly as her heart raced in her chest, feeling like it would break through her ribs at any second.

Relief turned her bones to jelly as the Winchesters came into view, Dean holding onto a strange man’s arm, whose wrists were locked into the second set of supernatural restraints, followed by Sam holding an angel blade pointed at the man’s back.

Delilah emerged from her hiding place and the man tilted his head to the side looking at her.  She stared right back, sizing him up.  Gadreel’s vessel was tall, nearly as tall as Sam, and just as broad in the shoulders.  His face looked like it had been etched in marble, his stern expression paired with a square jaw and short hair giving him a statue-like look.  Delilah was instantly reminded of a long-ago night when an angel she thought was named Zeke had brought Dean back from the dead.  He had been possessing Sam at the time, but the expression in this stranger’s eyes was unmistakably the same, regardless of his vessel’s face.

Dean marched him into the centre of the painted trap and sat him down on the wooden chair forcefully.  The angel kept his eyes on her and she slid her angel blade back into her belt and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Hello again, Delilah.  What an unexpected pleasure to see you again.”

Delilah just glared at him, how odd to hear that tone, that exact same cadence that she’d heard in Sam’s voice, come from this stranger.  It was Sam who stepped in front of her, barely able to contain his anger, clutching the angel blade in his fist.  His chest was heaving, his face twisted into a snarl and when he spoke there was more venom in his voice than she had ever heard from the younger Winchester.

“You don’t fucking talk to her.  Got it?”

Gadreel slowly tilted his head back to look at Sam calmly, his voice level and metered.  “If this is like looking into a fun house mirror for me, I cannot imagine what it is like for you.”

Delilah moved to the side to see between the brothers; Dean standing, arms crossed over his chest, completely focused on the captive angel. Sam looked like he might snap at any second.

“How long have you been working for Metatron?” he asked Gadreel menacingly.

Gadreel had a smug look on his face as he answered, “I will not talk, and _you_ cannot make me.”

“Yeah?” asked Sam, threateningly.

“I have been you, Sam Winchester. Your insides reek of shame and weakness.”

Delilah didn’t even have time to react that suddenly Dean was pulling his brother off the angel and dragging him to the side by his shirt lapels.  Gadreel was smiling to himself, unaffected by Sam’s blows, and Delilah stepped right in front of him, glaring at him.

“You’re the one who’s weak Gadreel.  Cowering inside Sam all those months, hiding your true identity, just to betray those who helped you by killing Kevin.  Where’s your shame?  Did you feel shame when you betrayed us? Or are you just cold and unfeeling?  You’re a monster.  You deserve your punishment.”

For a second, the angel’s composure slipped and something like anger flashed on his stone face, but it was gone almost immediately.  Delilah stepped around him and walked down the narrow passageway to where Dean had dragged his brother and was now talking to him in hushed tones.

“You need to calm down, Sam.  He’s not gonna crack that fast.”

“I know!” he huffed, his shoulders stiff and his hands curled into tight fists. “Maybe you could hack him, like you and Crowley hacked me.”

She drew up to them and Dean looked at her pensively before answering, “No, no, no… Crowley’s the only one who can do that… and I am not calling that self-serving fucker.”

“We need Castiel,” said Delilah, “If anyone can get an angel to talk it’s another angel.”

Dean let out a frustrated hiss, sounding worried, “I still can’t reach him.  He hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, checking it again, “I turned on the GPS on his phone.  He’s still in the same town he was in this morning.”

He showed them the map with the blue location dot smack in Bishop’s Falls, an hour and a half away.  Sam looked at it frowning.

“What the hell?  That doesn’t add up,” said Sam.

“I know.  Look, you gotta go find him,” Dean said, looking at Sam and Delilah.

“Wait, what?” answered Sam, echoing her own thoughts.

She was not leaving Dean alone with Gadreel.  He was insane if he thought she would agree to this.  She frowned at him, without saying anything, waiting for him to explain his reasoning.

“You’re too close to this, Sam,” he said after a minute.

“What, and you’re not?”

Dean turned back, glancing at where they had left Gadreel.  He seemed calm and in control, his reasoning cool and logical in direct contrast with Sam’s still heaving chest and rushed speech.

“We’re not at this five minutes, you’re already going Liam Neeson on his ass.  I got this.  You two go find Cas.”

For him to send away Sam, ok, she could sort of understand that, but why was he sending her away?  She didn’t want to bring it up in front of Sam, but like hell was she leaving Dean alone.

“We already discussed this, Dean.”  She glanced at Sam, who was gazing off towards where Gadreel was sitting.  She moved closer to Dean, practically standing toe-to-toe, and she looked up into his face, whispering fiercely.  “I’m not going anywhere, so stop trying to send me away.”

“Fine,” he answered, flatly, “But someone’s got to go find Cas.”

He turned his stare on his brother who had turned back towards them.  His jaw was tight, his eyes crazed, Dean was right about Sam being too close to the problem, he needed to calm down.  Finally, Sam looked down, his hair falling in his face and he exhaled forcefully.  He looked back up and gave them a quick nod, handing his brother the angel blade he still had in his hand, then he stalked off towards the exit.

Delilah breathed a sigh of relief.  Keeping one out-of-control Winchester in check was one thing, but both?  Jesus.  She shook her head, folding her arms over her chest.  Dean watched his brother leave, then turned around to head back to the chained angel.  Delilah took a deep breath and followed him.

Dean walked past Gadreel and paused, his back to him.  Delilah went on and turned around to lean against a railing to the side, keeping both of them in her sights.  Dean was playing with the angel blade in his hands, looking pensive.  Gadreel broke the silence.

“So,” he said, blood oozing slowly from his left eye where Sam had hit him before.  “He acts tough and you show kindness.  Is that how this works?”

Dean glanced up at her and she felt uneasy seeing the look on his face; it was cold, in control and dangerous.  He slowly turned around facing the angel.

“No,” he said, calmly, “See, I don’t care whether you talk.  You’re gonna pay for what you did to Sam… and Kevin.”

 _It was a scare tactic… had to be_ , Delilah told herself, trying to keep her face neutral so it wouldn’t betray her worry to Gadreel.  No matter what, they had to appear as one or else he would play on their division.

She watched, for the next hour, as Dean cut into Gadreel with the angel blade, each slice and stab accompanied by the tortured screams that echoed in her ears and left her shaking inside.  The more Dean hurt Gadreel, the more she was brought back to her own torture at the hands of Adriel.  She saw again, the icy blue eyes of the girl she had been possessing as she cut and stabbed her.  She felt again, the cold metal of the angel’s blade as it plunged into her heart, the life seeping out of her, darkness creeping in at the edges, just so it could be healed at the last moment and pierced again.  Delilah shook as Gadreel’s screams echoed in her head, her own remembered screams resonating in chorus.  _Where is Castiel?_   Adriel had asked her over again, just as Dean now taunted Gadreel.

“Word around the campfire is, you let the snake into the garden.  Ruined it for all humanity.” He was wiping the blade on an old, oil-stained handkerchief he usually kept on him when he was working on Baby.

Delilah slowly unclenched her hands from around the railing where she had been leaning, her joints completely numb from holding on too tightly.  She took a deep breath, trying to loosen her tense muscles, relieved that Dean seemed to be taking a break.  Gadreel was looking a little worse for wear as he heaved in his chair, blood dripping from his cuts.  That flash of anger appeared on his face again as he looked up at Dean.

“I set them free,” he said with a note of desperation, like it was of vital importance that they understand.  He looked over at her intently.  “I loved humanity!” he said emphatically.

“Well, you sure got a funny way of showing it, asshat,” Dean said.  Gadreel turned away from Delilah and refocused on him, gasping, trying to catch his breath.  Dean tucked the handkerchief into his back pocket.  “Now, look,” he said, his deep gravelly voice sending chills down her spine, “You tell me about this ‘ _Getting back into Heaven_ ’ crap and I’ll end this quick.”  He was walking around Gadreel and he stopped right behind his chair, leaning down with the angel blade pointed at the angel’s back.  “Otherwise, you can sit here and rot in those chains forever.”

He didn’t give him a chance to answer.  A look of pain twisted Gadreel’s face and he opened his mouth wide and screamed, making Delilah flinch as she realized that Dean was slowly pushing the blade in the angel’s back, light spilling out of the wound.  She must have made a sound because Dean’s eyes suddenly flicked up towards her and she was chilled to realize that the green irises were completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever: no shame, or regret at what he was doing, no rage, or anger fuelling his actions, just cold, hard emptiness.  Almost like those people who had lost their souls.

Another hour went by before Gadreel began to speak, Dean pulling back as he took another break, his blade and knuckles bloodied.  Delilah breathed a sigh and unclenched her hands again from around the railing.  She had spent a good part of the time focusing on not throwing up, watching Dean inflict pain, the whole time cool and collected and unaffected by Gadreel’s screams.  This was a side of him she had only just glimpsed before, like when he had killed Thinman in Washington, only then he had been wrathful… now…

“All your talk,” Gadreel gasped out, “All your bluster… You think you are invincible.  You and your brother against the world, right?”

“Damn straight,” Dean answered loudly.  He had his back turned to her, so she couldn’t see his face.  He was looking around at the factory innards, waiting for Gadreel to say something useful, or for his cue to start inflicting pain again.

“You really think Sam would do anything for you?” taunted the angel.

“Oh, I know he would,” Dean answered, turning his head towards him.

“I have been in your brother’s body, Dean.  He would not trade his life for yours.”

“Well… Thanks for the rerun, pal.  Sam’s already told me all that crap.  Hell, he’s told me worse.”

“What about her, then?”

Delilah looked up at Gadreel, who was staring right at her, she held his stare until he looked back to Dean.

“What about her?” Dean asked, like he was just humouring the angel, his back still turned, but stiff.

“How long do you think she’ll stay?  Even now, she can barely contain her horror and disgust.  You think she loves you?  How long before she leaves you, Dean?”

Delilah’s brain froze.  She felt like a deer in headlights as she looked into the angel’s eyes.

“Shut up,” Dean’s low, threatening voice growled.

“You see the truth in what I say.  Look at her, Dean.  You should have chased her away earlier, now she sees what a monster you truly are.”

“Shut the fuck up!”  Delilah yelled, stepping away from the rail, her anger getting the better of her as she breathed heavily.  Dean turned slowly and looked at her over his shoulder and the flash of doubt that appeared in his face made her queasy.  She wanted to deny what Gadreel was saying, but part of her just couldn’t help that he was right: Dean was terrifying and she wanted to run away.  She shook away the idea, reminding herself that this was just what the angel wanted.

Dean turned back around to face Gadreel, a smirk planted on his face and a chuckle deep in his throat.  “Keep it up, pal.”

It seemed Gadreel had plenty more to say as his voice became stronger, more confident, “Sam is right, of course.  He thinks you are just a scared little boy who’s afraid of being on his own because daddy never loved him enough.”

Dean looked down at the angel blade in his hands, another chuckle in his throat but something in his face was different, a quiver in his lip or a tightening around his eyes, Delilah wasn’t sure, but she quietly took a couple small steps towards him.

“Delilah knows this too,” Gadreel added.

“Stop putting words in my mouth, you piece of shit,” she spit at him.

Gadreel grimaced, stretching his cut lip.  “She knows, Dean, that you’re a coward… a sad, clingy, needy…” His words were cut off by Dean’s fist connecting with his mouth, but he kept going. “A pathetic bottom-feeder who cannot even take care of himself,” Dean turned away again, twirling the blade in his hands as he paced.  Gadreel’s voice rose as he taunted him, gaining in intensity, “You would rather drag everyone through the mud, than be alone!  You would let everyone around you die!”

Delilah had a split second to react.  One moment, Dean was facing away from Gadreel, looking bored with the angel and the next, his face had twisted into a snarl, his fist closed around the blade in his hand.  When he turned around to face him, Delilah was already moving to intercept him.  He was almost on Gadreel in two long strides and Delilah grabbed hold of his arm, trying to keep the blade from sinking into his chest.  Dean threw her off brusquely, sending her flying backwards and crashing to the ground.  She felt the bite in her arm as she scraped against something sharp.

Delilah stared at the cold metal grill under her, breathing heavily from her shock, but she pushed herself back up quickly, rushing to stop Dean from killing the only source of information they had on Metatron.  A second intervention was unnecessary though – Dean was already walking away, stalking off towards another part of the old factory.  Delilah glanced at Gadreel, sitting powerlessly on the rickety old chair in the centre of his trap and the look on his face confused her enough to distract her from what had just happened.  He was looking terrified, desperate.

In an instant, the look was gone, replaced by indifference bordering on smugness, but she had seen it, and realization dawned on her… he had been taunting Dean on purpose in order to make him lash out.  He narrowed his eyes at her and smirked knowingly, but Delilah wasn’t fooled.  As he started trying to taunt her, she heard every word, but the underlying message, his hidden desperation, was what she was paying attention to.  He had wanted Dean to react… he wanted Dean to kill him… but, that wasn’t really it and she understood.  She remembered a long-ago conversation with Castiel and she understood what it was that terrified Gadreel so much.

“What was it like, Gadreel?”  The angel’s face dropped, maybe realizing his words had no impact on her.  He visibly swallowed as Delilah went on, “What was it like, all those millennia, locked away?”  She paused, waiting for him to answer, but he kept silent, his eyes wide.  “Wanna know what I think?  I think you’re afraid.  But you’re not afraid of dying.  You’re terrified that we’re going to leave you here, trapped all alone, right here in this rat-infested hole.”

“No,” he uttered, sounding weak, “No!  You all want me dead, so do it!  I killed your friend, I killed Kevin Tran!” Delilah shook her head, disgusted with his pitiful attempt to rile her.  She turned away, her thoughts already turning back to Dean and how he must be beating himself up for getting carried away, as Gadreel’s voice got louder and more desperate.  “Kill me!” he shouted at her over and over as she left him behind.

Delilah made her way down the corridor, exposed pipes and brown run off sludge on the walls, wondering where Dean had gone.  She glanced down at the cut on her arm as she passed by a door marked washroom.  She figured Dean might have sought refuge in there and she pushed open the door marked ‘ _men._ ’

Dean was leaning over one of the sinks, his khaki green clad shoulders hunched, his eyes fixed on his reflection in the dingy mirror.  Delilah walked into the room, letting the door hang open precariously on its hinges.  She glanced around as she thought about what to say, taking a few slow steps into the room.  Like the rest of the building, the washroom was showing signs of abandonment and disrepair: piles of rust-coloured flakes littering the corners of the floor, the urinals on the left yellowed and caked in sludge, the walls and mirrors covered in a greasy dust, except for where Dean had wiped a section clean.  She just noticed that he had put the angel blade down on the sink between the taps and the wall, his cell phone sitting beside it.

She stopped a little to his right and behind him, watching, worried, as he cast his eyes down at the Mark of Cain exposed on his arm.  He squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head.

“Are you ok, Dean?” she asked him, gently.

He opened his eyes and his brow furrowed as he focused on something just past his own arm.  She realized he was looking at her cut and she glanced at it quickly.  It was just barely a scratch really and she moved forward to the sink beside his and turned on the water to rinse it.

“You really think, I’m a monster?” he asked her, his husky voice sounding vulnerable.

She turned the tap off and looked at him; his eyes were fixed on his arm again.  “Dean, he’s playing with your head.”

Delilah took a step closer and put her hand on his shoulder, reaching to hold him.  He jarred her away though, shrugging her off as he walked towards the back of the room.  She felt her heart pinch and tried to not take it personally.  The silence stretched on and she started feeling frustrated.  “What’s going on in your head, huh?  You’re playing right into his hand.  He _wants_ you to kill him, don’t you see that?”

Dean turned around and fixed her with a murderous stare.  “Yeah?” he said taking a step towards her, menacingly.  She couldn’t help taking a step back as her heart jumped into her throat and her stomach clenched.  Dean looked away and grabbed the angel blade in his left hand, holding it in reverse, the blade along his arm. “Maybe I’ll do him a favour then.”

He couldn’t be serious.  Delilah swallowed hard and as Dean took a step towards the door, she stepped in front of him to block him.  “You’re not thinking clearly.  We still need him to talk.  Remember Metatron?  Angels getting back into Heaven?  Getting Kevin where he belongs?  Any of this ringing a bell?”

“Get out of the way, Lilah,” he growled at her quietly without looking at her, making her stomach churn and giving her goosebumps, but she would not be deterred.

“No, Dean.  Not until you calm down.”

He slowly shifted his gaze to her, and she was chilled to the bone by the cold, predatory stare.  “I said move,” his voice barely above a whisper but all the more terrifying for it.

Delilah stood firm, even in her terror.  Dean would never hurt her, she told herself.  This was too important to back down. “No,” she told him again, trying to sound confident.

The hit took her by surprise, she saw his arm come up, his hand closed in a tight fist but she truly believed he would stop himself… even when he didn’t.  His hand connected with her face and her legs turned to mush as she dropped to the floor, her ears ringing.  She felt completely disoriented as he stepped around her and walked out the door, her mind simply refusing to acknowledge what he’d done.

Delilah had no idea how much time passed while she was on the floor, but she was pulled from her daze by a buzzing sound coming from one of the porcelain sinks.  She sat up, fighting the slowly receding dizziness and then pulled herself to her feet.  She saw Dean’s cell phone, still sitting on the edge of the sink as the display turned off.  She grabbed it as the last of the ringing left her ears and pressed the power button, the display lighting up again, showing that Sam had called.

She tapped the call back button.  It barely had a chance to ring that Sam’s voice came through.  “Dean,” he said, sounding agitated.

“Sam,” she said, unable to keep the anguish out of her voice.  “Sam, you have to come back.”

“I’m already on my way.  What happened? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Dean.  He’s gonna kill Gadreel.  I tried to stop him… He… I…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, she couldn’t get the words out as she glanced up at the wiped off mirror, startled to see the trickle of blood running down from her eyebrow.  How did everything get so fucked up?

“Delilah, Dean can’t kill him,” Sam said hurriedly into the phone.

“I know, Sam!  We need him to talk, but…”

“Metatron has Cas.”

Delilah swallowed hard, _shit_!  She stared at the wide-eyed, terrified girl in the mirror.  What the hell could she do?  “I’ll try to hold him off,” she said into the phone, her heart pounding, “but Sam?”

“Yeah.”

“Hurry.”

She hung up the phone and slipped it into her pocket.  She took a deep breath and pulled off her jean jacket and sweater, draping them over the corner of the sink.  She pulled her gun, with the case, off her belt and put them on her jacket, pulling out her angel blade and leaving it in the sink too.  She walked out of the washroom and rushed to where she had painted the angel trap earlier, and from where she could now hear sounds of fighting, Gadreel’s groans, the clinking of a moving chain and the impact of Dean’s fists on him.

When she reached where they were, it was to find the angel, still incapacitated and powerless in the cuffs, held up by Dean’s fist in his shirt as he hit him over and over.

“Get up!” he was yelling at the angel who looked like a gentle breeze would knock him over.

He tried anyways, raising his arms to fend off Dean’s hits, the hunter throwing all of himself behind his punches.  It was with relief that she saw the angel blade on the floor, kicked off to the side.  Without the angel blade, he would not be killing him.  Dean landed punch after punch, Gadreel retreating one step at a time but not even trying to hit back.  When he tripped, and fell against the back wall, Dean was on him in a second, blood flying from the angel’s face as his fist connected again and again.  Eventually, Gadreel lost consciousness, his eyes closing and his body going limp.  Dean didn’t seem to have noticed as he just kept right on hitting.  Finally, his blows seemed to slow as his inexhaustible supply of energy started to wane.

Delilah took a step towards him as he sat back on his heel, still holding onto Gadreel, his fist in the air like he’d forgotten about it.  She looked at his face, at the confusion and disbelief there and she saw that the Dean she knew was back in control.  She fell to her knees beside him and threw her arms around him as they dropped backwards, Dean leaning up against the wall, panting.

“Lilah,” he said, exhausted as he wrapped his arms around her.  Relief coursed through her and she sobbed into his chest, holding on to him with tight fists.  Dean broke the silence after a while, his voice soft.  “He wanted to die, and I was gonna kill him, I was,” Dean said holding on to her.  “But you’re right.  We need him to talk.” He paused.  “So, I stopped.”

“I saw that you threw the blade away,” she said, straightening up and sitting back on her heels, wiping at her spent tears, his hands falling down her arms.

“I was so angry.  I couldn’t stop, Lilah.  I couldn’t stop…” His voice trailed away as he looked at her face, his eyes stopping on her left eye.  She looked down at his bloodied knuckles, the skin torn, the joints swollen.  “I am… so… sorry, baby.”

The pain in his voice, the intensity of his words, tore at her heart.  She threw herself against him again, her lips pressing against his, desperate for his comfort.

“It’s ok, Dean,” she said against his mouth, “It wasn’t you.  It wasn’t you.”

Dean kissed her back, caressing the side of her face and holding on to her tightly with his arm and she could feel his desperation as well, his need for… something, be it atonement or absolution.  Whatever it was, she couldn’t deny him.  She would give him whatever he needed from her.  Even if the seas got rough, she would be his anchor.

~

Sam found them like that, sitting on the floor, Delilah cradled in Dean’s side, holding onto him tightly, his head leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed.  “Dean!” he had yelled in a panic as he came charging into the room looking all around for them.  When he finally spotted them, sitting against the wall, the unconscious angel lying beside them, Sam rushed over and crouched in front of them.  Delilah looked up as Sam looked his brother over, his eyes pausing on the bloody knuckles and then looking over at Gadreel.

“Are you ok?” he asked, a deep frown on his face.

“Yeah,” answered Dean, sounding completely exhausted, “You gotta stop asking me that.”

He moved his arm and Delilah sat up, looking at Gadreel.  “What are we gonna do about Cas?” she asked Sam.

“Cas?  What’s going on with Cas?” Dean asked, confused.

“Metatron has him,” Sam answered.  “He’s offering up a trade.”

Dean didn’t say anything, absorbing the information, then he glanced over at Gadreel.  “We can’t trust Metatron.”

“I-I know that, obviously,” answered Sam, a note of excitement in his voice.  Delilah turned her head to look at him better and he did a double take, accompanied by a frown as he looked back at her.  Delilah was confused for a half second before she remembered her eye and she stood up quickly, turning her head away and walking over to the forgotten angel blade as a pretext.  Sam turned back to look at his brother.  “Look, this is the first time we’re gonna know for sure where Metatron is.  Let’s take Gadreel to the meet-up, make the exchange, and then trap Metatron.”

Dean didn’t look convinced as he sat against the wall, but he also didn’t have a better alternative.  Sam helped his brother up and then together they got Gadreel back into his chair in the angel trap, allowing the three of them to slink off to another part of the plant so they could work out the details of the plan in private.  They found the small kitchen area off the side of the main factory floor and they pulled up chairs to the table.  It was going on 4 a.m. and Delilah’s eyes were beginning to shut by themselves.

The meet-up had been set for 6 p.m. back in Bishop’s Falls and they decided that some shut eye wouldn’t be a bad idea.  They drove to Castiel’s motel, stuffing a still unconscious Gadreel into the trunk of the car, fresh angel wards painted on the inside to keep him in check.  Sam opted to stay in the car as Dean and Delilah headed for room 7.  Castiel had turned the place into a mirror of their own war room back home with maps and photographs and post-it notes and newspaper articles plastered to the wall and the door.  “Jesus,” Delilah muttered, as she looked over what he had been working on.  He had clearly been tracking angel kills and sightings throughout the states, his articles ranging from mass murders to minor miracles and spanning as far back as November.

“I’m gonna go wash up,” Dean said, as he disappeared into the washroom at the back of the room.

Delilah looked over at the bed, it was covered in more research materials: books and scrolls and notepads.  She picked up everything and put it all on the table with more of Castiel’s research, the need for an angel who never slept to rent a motel room becoming clear.  The bed freed up, she stripped down to her underwear and top, took the elastic out of her hair, and crawled under the scratchy linen.  The light was starting to shine into the room through the thin curtains but she ignored it, dragging the sheets up to her chin and burrowing into the pillow.  Dean came out of the washroom not long after, dressed in his black boxer briefs, his hair damp.  Delilah swallowed hard, her heart beating nervously as he pulled back the blankets on his side and slipped into bed with her.

She was lying on her side, her back to him, but she could feel his eyes on her.  When her heart beat faster still, she couldn’t tell if it was because she was anxious or aroused.  Dean laid his hand between her shoulder blades, his palm warm through her thin cotton shirt.  He moved up closer to her, and she could feel his body heat from her feet to her shoulders.  He slowly glided his hand down her arm, and Delilah closed her eyes, a shudder going through her at the gentle touch.  He moved her hair out of the way and kissed her neck.  She finally gave in to his touch when his arm curled around her waist, holding her against him.  She rolled in his arms and Dean looked at her, his gaze stopping on her cut eyebrow again momentarily before closing the gap between them with his mouth.  Delilah’s passion was slow to ignite, her mind overrun by images of Dean doing and saying things that had disturbed her so much in the last twenty-four hours… God, had it really only been a day?  She pulled away from him, closing her eyes tightly, trying to banish that terrifying look she’d seen in his eyes.

She felt his calloused hand on her cheek and she gazed into his caring, concerned face, his lips turned down at the corners and his eyebrows angled in sadness.  Delilah’s heart throbbed painfully.  _Stay with me,_ he had pleaded with her the last time she had seen that look.  She had promised she wasn’t going anywhere then, and she remade that promise to herself now.  He needed her.

She pressed her lips against his, sliding her arms behind his neck and pressing her body closer.  He made love to her slowly, being so gentle and careful, like he was afraid to hurt her.  She basked in the feel of him, pleasure lapping at her like quiet waves slowly rolling up a beach on a calm day.

Dean held onto her tightly, post-coitus, burying his head in her shoulder and neck.  He fell asleep, Delilah slowly running her hand through his short-cropped hair, his breathing even.  She kissed his forehead and leaned her cheek against him, and she whispered three little words that faded into the brightening room, no one to hear them but her.

⭐


	5. Darkness, Darkness

_Darkness, darkness, hide my yearning_

_For the things, I cannot see_

_Keep my mind from constant turning_

_To the things, I cannot be_

_Fill the emptiness with light_

 

_The sun shone brightly, as she opened her eyes, falling in and flooding the room with golden light.  She sat up in bed, the sheets gliding to the ground soundlessly as she looked around at the familiar, yet completely alien décor of the bunker.  She got out of bed, trance-like, and headed for the door, glowing with bright sunlight.  She stepped through and found herself in a field.  Short summer grasses came up to her thighs and a gentle breeze caressed her, turning the endless field into a green ocean of rolling waves.  She slowly spun in a circle, looking all around her at the beauty.  She stopped, facing a lone oak tree, standing tall and strong a little ways off.  She felt drawn to it, pulled by an invisible string.  As she approached, the shadows at its base moved and she shielded her eyes against the over bright sunshine, trying to see into the darkest shadows.  Her toes touched the edge of the cool shade and it was like someone had turned the lights off – the idyllic blue sky and summer warmth replaced by cold night, a billion tiny stars glimmering as far as the eye could see.  She turned back to look at the tree and found Dean standing there instead.  She smiled and ran into his open arms and he held her gently._

_Stay with me, whispered the breeze around her._

_Always, she answered._

_The sharp pain in her abdomen felt out of place as she looked down to see the bone handle sticking out of her right side, Dean’s hand firmly wrapped around it.  She backed away as thunder rumbled in the distance.  She turned around and ran for it, suddenly finding herself in the familiar hallways of the bunker, but every turn she took brought her somewhere she didn’t know and she felt panic rising in her as she tried to find her way around the place she had come to think of as home.  Suddenly, Dean appeared at the end of the hall, the First Blade bloody in his hand, the mark on his arm glowing red and she was cornered.  In a few long strides, he was on her.  His eyes were cold, brutal as he grabbed her by the throat and held her against the wall, his mouth curled into a snarl.  She gasped for air as he glared at her, angry and ruthless._

_Stay with me, he said as he plunged the First Blade into her stomach tilting it up into her heart as she felt the life bleed out of her, darkness creeping in at the edges, a smile spreading on his lips as he repeated those three little words._

Delilah startled awake, sitting up in bed, a cold sweat covering her as she gasped for breath like she was still being choked.  Dean was nowhere to be found as she looked around the simple motel room, Castiel’s hunting notes spread out on the walls.  She finally caught her breath and remembered why they had come to Bishop’s Falls in the first place.  She scrambled out of bed and grabbed her jeans from the floor, pulling out her cell phone.  It was 5 p.m., soon they would be meeting with Metatron to try and trap him and save Castiel.

She gathered her clothes and headed into the washroom, taking a quick shower, her towel joining Dean’s on the edge of the tub.  She looked into the bathroom mirror to examine the cut on her brow and was startled to find that the skin around the outer corner of her eye was bruised and swollen.  It was looking infinitely worse today.  Delilah shook her hair, letting it fall naturally, covering part of the bruising.  Then, she went out the motel room door to rejoin the Winchesters, standing by the Impala’s sleek black shape.

The plan was simple.  Delilah would wait with Gadreel inside the motel room, while Sam and Dean met with Metatron to negotiate the exchange.  Sam helped her draw angel wardings all around the room while Gadreel sat, silent as stone, in the middle of a fresh angel trap, the restraints still in place on his wrists.  In the meantime, Dean had laid out a fresh holy oil ring beside the car, where he and Sam were going to stand, waiting for Metatron to show.  When he did, they would discuss the trade and when they had Castiel back, Dean would light the ring and trap Metatron.

It was 5:45, everything was in place.  Delilah walked Sam out of the room, holding the door open for him.  He turned around, looking concerned, standing in the open doorway.  Dean was already leaning casually against Baby, parked across the small parking lot, in position for the trap.

“You sure you’re ok with this?” asked Sam pulling her gaze away from his brother and up to his face.  He looked down, his eyebrows furrowed.  “I mean, I get it if you don’t want to be the one to watch Gadreel.”

Sam’s hand came up to her face and gently moved her hair to the side, looking at her bruised eye.  _He thinks Gadreel did this_ … Delilah exhaled through her nose and glanced back at Dean momentarily.  He was watching them, his eyebrows pulled up in misery and he quickly looked down at his feet.

“It’s fine, Sam.  I’ll be fine,” she told him, gently pushing his hand away and letting the hair fall back in place.

Sam turned and headed out to the parking lot and Delilah closed the door, leaning her forehead against it.

“You know, and I know, and Dean knows that I was not the one to do that to you,” said the angel behind her.

She turned around and glared at Gadreel, “Shut up.  I don’t need you worming your way into my head today.”

He smirked and she turned back to the window.  She moved the curtain aside just enough for her to see what was going on outside in the quickly lengthening shadows of dusk and then sat on the other chair in the room, beside the window, ready to wait for Dean to give her the signal to bring out Gadreel.

“A man who hits the woman he loves in anger… there’s a name for that.  What was it?”  Delilah refused to comment.  What was his end game now?  Surely, he didn’t still want to die, not with his deliverance so close at hand.  So, what was the point of his taunts?  She hadn’t thought of him as someone sadistic, not like Adriel.  “Ah yes, I remember now: a coward.”

She didn’t bother replying, letting silence fall between them like a curtain while she focused on what was happening outside.  Delilah glanced down at her phone, 6:05.  Metatron was late.

She looked back out at the parking lot, her stomach in knots.  Suddenly, Sam and Dean weren’t alone out there, and they straightened up, stiffly.  Delilah examined the little man who had suddenly appeared on the darkening pavement, his back turned to her.  He was short and pudgy, dressed in business casual wear: beige slacks and a grey green sports coat.  She couldn’t see his face but his cropped, brown hair was curly and greying.  If they had asked her to pick a man out of a lineup to be Metatron’s vessel, she wouldn’t have even looked twice at this man.

She shifted her gaze back to the Winchesters, waiting for the signal, trying to gauge what was happening through their body language.  Why were they standing so awkwardly?  The man she assumed was Metatron took a few steps forward and planted his feet firmly, pointing to the ground, right in the middle of where Dean had spread the holy oil.  It was like he knew exactly where to stand.  Seeing the look on Sam’s face, she knew something was wrong.  She stayed where she was though, waiting for the signal.

Dean flicked open his lighter and let it drop to the ground, setting the holy oil ablaze, encircling Metatron, and capturing him.  Delilah felt glad that they had him, but a nagging uncertainty pulled at her as she watched the events unfolding outside.  The angel in the holy fire was writhing and jerking like he was in pain while Sam and Dean looked on, confusion and wariness all over their faces.  Suddenly, Metatron stopped his jerky movements and bent forward, laughing… was he actually warming his hands over the holy fire?  What the fuck?  And then, the impossible happened, he leaned forward and the ring of holy fire dampened in a wave, like candles being blown out on a cake.

Sam and Dean pulled out angel blades and took a step towards the angel, but he disarmed them and threw them back against the car with a hand flick.  Shit, shit, shit… Delilah’s brain ran through what to do.  She was safe inside the room with the wardings, she had to stay right there and trust the boys would get themselves out.

Suddenly, all around her, the carefully painted symbols keeping the angel out blew away, like dandelion seeds in a puff of wind, and she stood up from the table, looking right at the little man who had appeared between her and Gadreel.  He stood before her, sizing her up.  Facing him, she could now see that his face was as fleshy as the rest of him, his jowls covered with a smattering of grey beard, his eyes were startlingly large and green and he had a smug, know-it-all look.

“Why don’t you come join us outside?” he said, in a high, grating voice like nails on a chalkboard.

Before she could answer, he had disappeared again and she looked on in horror as the angel trap vanished from around Gadreel’s feet and the special cuffs on his wrists sprang open.  He stood up, squaring his shoulders and Delilah’s stomach dropped.  She was dead, she knew it.  Whatever was going on, she was completely defenceless.  Gadreel walked over to the door and opened it, gesturing gallantly for her to go first.  Delilah swallowed hard and forced her feet to move forward, her mind racing through what she could do if the angel decided to attack her, and she realized in a panic, there was nothing she could do.

He followed her out the door.  Her eyes met Dean’s across the parking lot and they were wide and panicked, mirroring her own fear.  She walked right up to him, thinking that each step would be her last, but nothing happened.  She reached Dean’s side and it took all her will power to stop herself from gripping his hand tightly, settling instead for trying to communicate through eye-contact.

A black Mercedes had driven up to the motel in the meantime, and out of it stepped two women who stood by stiffly like soldiers guarding a perimeter.  Out of the back, came Castiel looking like he always did in his slightly ill fitting blue suit and tan overcoat.  He walked over to them as Metatron’s high grating voice spoke out again.

“Well, a deal is a deal!”

“Why are you doing this?” Dean asked the short angel who held so much power over all of them.  How were they supposed to beat this thing?

Metatron looked them each in the eyes and then answered.  “Because I can,” his voice had dropped in timber, the look in his eyes suddenly threatening and absolutely terrifying when paired with everything she had just seen him do.  “Because you and your brother and your fine, feathered friend.  And all those secrets you’ve got locked away in your bunker can’t stop me.”  A yellowed smile spread on his face as he added, “But I am going to enjoy watching you try.  It’s gonna be a hell of a show.”  He turned to Castiel, the ingratiating little smile gone, “I’ll see you around, Castiel.  Never forget, I gave you a chance.”

With a salute, Metatron was gone and the black Mercedes drove away carrying the two soldier angels and Gadreel.  The four of them were left alone to stand in a cheap motel parking lot, reeling from the significance of what Metatron had said… he was unstoppable.  He had the power to do whatever he liked with them at any given moment.  He was God and he just let them know that he was tolerating their existence… for now.

Delilah rocked back against Baby, sliding down her shiny black paint to crouch into a ball, her face in her hands.  Dean quickly crouched in front of her, his hand on her shoulder.

“Lilah!  You alright?  Did he hurt you?”

Delilah shook her head, feeling her body trembling uncontrollably.  Dean stood back up and took a couple of steps away from them, his fists closed tightly at his sides.

“What about you, Cas?” asked Sam, concerned.

“I’m fine.  Metatron merely wanted to talk.”

The last of the sunlight disappeared on the horizon and the long shadows turned to night as they stood around the empty parking lot.  Dean turned around again, clearly agitated as he spoke to his brother and Castiel.

“Somebody want to tell me what the fuck’s going on here?” Dean said quickly.

“Metatron is trying to play God,” answered Castiel with a shake of his head.

“Trying?” Delilah said, pushing herself away from the car and standing with the boys, all three of them towering over her.  “He’s not trying, he’s succeeding!  Am I the only one who saw the shit he pulled?  What the hell kind of angel can just make wardings vanish like that?” Her voice kept getting higher as her panic came pouring out of her, unable to pretend anymore that any of this stuff was normal.  “He’s not trying, he IS God.”  She was breathing heavily, her heart feeling like it would pound out of her chest.

The three of them just stared at her, at a loss for words.  It was Dean who reached for her first, stretching his arms to fold her into his embrace.  “No, Dean!” she said forcefully as she shook him off.  “This is gonna take more than a fucking hug to fix!  What the fuck are we supposed to do?”  The world was pressing down on her from every side, the air itself smothering her as her brain skipped from one terrifying event to the other from the past day and a half and not finding any solutions.  Everything was crashing down around her and there was nowhere to hide.

In the end, it was Sam who snapped her out of her panic as he grabbed her by both arms and leaned down, forcing her to look at him in the eyes.  He was staring back at her intensely, his voice calm and soothing, everything about him leaving no room to doubt his honesty.

“Delilah, we’ve been through stuff like this before.  There’s always a way, ok?  But we have to keep our heads.”

Slowly, her heart went back to a more normal rhythm and the iron bands across her ribs loosened slightly and she found herself nodding at Sam, swallowing around the lump in her throat.  He held her gaze a little longer, then satisfied she was ok for the moment, gave her a curt nod and released her.  She looked at Castiel and Dean who were standing by, the angel looking unaffected, but Dean looking upset.

“Look,” Sam said addressing the group, “It’s clear Metatron is powering up with the angel tablet.  So, how’re we going to stop him?”

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he thought about the situation, “Alright,” he said, “So, what if there is a stairway to Heaven?  We find it.  And get a drop on the guy.”

A small smile spread on Sam’s face as he responded, “You want to sneak onto the Death Star, and take out the Emperor?”

Delilah felt a smile tugging at her lips too.  _Of course, their lives were turning into a fucking movie… this whole situation was ridiculous._ Dean shifted from one foot to the other, clearly not enjoying his brother’s mocking, he looked like he was going to spew a come back, but Castiel jumped in, his confused frown firmly in place.

“Okay.  I’m not sure what a fictional battle station in space has to do with this,” All three of them turned their heads to look at the angel in complete disbelief as he went on, “But if taking out the Emperor means taking out Metatron, I’m on board.”

This is the guy who didn’t understand the concept of a kids’ animated movie… and now he was fluent in Star Wars?  She turned to look at Dean, hoping for an explanation, but the hunter looked just as baffled as her.

“Wait, did you… did you just understand a Death Star reference?”

“Yeah,” Castiel replied, not looking too sure himself.  “I think so.  But I don’t understand what that has to do with Heaven.”

Both brothers looked mildly impressed, their lips curling into smiles as they glanced at each other and then back at Castiel, a comic break in all the drama.  Dean’s frown returned quickly though as he looked at Castiel more closely.

“You sure you’re alright?” he asked him.

“Yes,” answered Castiel with a sigh, then he narrowed his eyes at Dean, looking perplexed again, “Are you?” he asked him, “There’s something different about you.”

Dean tried to play it cool, like he had on the phone that morning, repeating again that he was fine and tapping Castiel’s shoulder.  Suspicion replaced confusion on the angel’s face and suddenly he reached up and grabbed Dean’s arm, it was his right arm, the one bearing the Mark of Cain.  He lifted Dean’s sleeve like he knew exactly what he was looking for.  He stared at the raised scar tissue in the shape of a backwards F.

“What have you done?” Castiel asked him through clenched teeth as Dean yanked back his arm and pushed down the sleeve.

“It’s a means to an end,” Dean said.

“Damn it, Dean,” the angel growled, sounding worried.

Sam was standing by, watching the whole thing silently but he was looking upset.  Her mind was racing; what did Castiel know about the Mark of Cain?  Could he answer some of her questions?  The questions the Men of Letters had not thought to ask about the mark and its impact on the bearer?  Dean looked at each of them and something on their faces must have bothered him because he became defensive.

He tugged down his sleeve again, addressing Castiel, “Look, you find Heaven, you drop a dime.  Meantime, I’ve got a knight to kill.”

Dean turned around and stalked over to the Impala, sitting down in the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind him, making Delilah startle.  She looked thoughtfully towards the car as loud music came on.

“It’s bad, isn’t it, Cas?  Worse than we realized?” she asked him, dreading his answer.

“I don’t know.  I fear Dean had done something that could have serious repercussions for him.”

Delilah turned back to look at Sam and Castiel, the taller Winchester looking resigned.  He looked towards the car and took a deep breath.  He turned back towards Castiel.  “We’ll have to deal with it when we get there.”  Castiel pursed his lips looking worried again.  Sam paused, nodding his head, “Be safe out there,” he told the angel.

“You too, Sam,” he answered.

Delilah turned away, aiming to follow Sam back to the car when Castiel called out to her.  Sam paused and turned around, but she waved him on as she walked back to stand next to the angel in the trench coat.  He was staring at her with his intense blue eyes.  She felt a shiver go through her and crossed her arms, knowing full well it had nothing to do with the air temperature.

“I’m sorry, Delilah,” he said after a moment.

She frowned, “For what?”

Castiel raised his arm towards her and brushed her hair to the side a bit, tilting his head.  “The Dean Winchester that I know would never hit you.”

She was startled, how did he know?  She took a shaky breath before she answered in a weak voice, “Neither would the one I know.”

She felt a strange pressure in her eye, halfway between a tickle and a migraine and bright light spilled from his fingers as he healed her.  The light dimmed and disappeared again and he pulled back his hand, letting the hair fall back in place.

“Thanks, Cas,” she said, shyly.

“Keep an eye on him,” he told her curtly.

She nodded, “I know.”

She turned, heading back to the car so they could go home.  She turned back when Castiel called out to her again, “Be careful,” he told her with a concerned frown on his face.  She reached for the handle on the back door of the car and pulled it open.  She sat down on the back seat, music flooding the car, keeping her eyes on the angel as Dean pulled away from the motel and they headed back home.

The atmosphere was heavy, no one saying anything, the tape in the player delivering the hard, fast rhythms of Motörhead through the speakers much louder than necessary, another indicator that Dean was not in a good mood.  Delilah wasn’t in a particularly good mood either, so many things to ponder on the long drive home.  She mostly stared out the window, a slow, steady headache pushing at the back of her head.

“Dean, can you turn it down a bit?” Sam turned his head to look at her from the front seat.  “You’re not the only one in the car,” she finished.

Sam opened his mouth with a slight twitch, maybe to remind her what Dean always said about drivers and music, but he never got the words out as Dean reached over and switched off the tape deck altogether.  The younger brother’s eyebrows shot up his forehead as he turned his head towards Dean in the now quiet car, the rumbling of the engine the only sound.

Sam turned back to face the front, looking slightly perplexed.  Delilah slouched down in the back seat, her legs towards the middle of the car and her head leaning against the back rest as she looked at the back of Dean’s head.  In the rear-view mirror, his eyes were fixed on the road, frowning slightly.  A few times, Sam looked like he wanted to say something, but every time he turned his head, his lips parted to speak, he ended up just turning away again without a word.  And so, the silence stretched on with the miles until Sam finally gave up completely and soon fell asleep, slouching down to lean his head.

Too much on her mind, Delilah couldn’t sleep.  Even with the darkness of the poorly lit interstate pressing down on them.  Her mind just refused to shut down, instead running over the events of the last two days, jumping from scene to scene like a highlights reel: Dean in the shower, his worry afterwards, Gadreel's torture mingling with her memories, Dean hitting her, his remorse, those three little words hanging on her lips, the failed encounter with Metatron and Castiel’s warning.  And then all over again.  Obsessively.  Her memories turning into waking dreams and distorting into nightmare versions of what had actually happened.

It was a relief when Dean finally parked on the road below the ancient power plant poised above the bunker, the sun already well above the horizon in the east and bathing the surrounding woods in golden sunlight.  Delilah stepped out of the car and took a deep breath of the crisp March air.  It felt like spring might be right around the corner.

“I’m gonna stretch my legs, guys,” she said, feeling like a walk was just what she needed after everything.  She grabbed her gun and badge from her bag in the trunk.  Sam came around the back and nudged her with his shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just feel like walking, my whole body is cramped.  The store should be open soon too, I’ll grab some food while I’m in town.”

Sam pursed his lips looking at her, “You want company?” he asked her.

She gave him a quick smile, “Naw, my head and me need to have a chat.  Can you bring in my stuff?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

She turned around and nearly ran into Dean who was reaching around her to grab his own bag out of the car.  Her heart slammed once against her ribcage and then settled down.  He was looking a little glum as his eyes avoided hers.  What now? Delilah asked herself, like she didn’t have enough rumbling around in her head.  Dean moved his arm and she ducked around him, pointing her feet down the road without a backward glance or farewell.

~

She made it back to the bunker, a couple hours later, feeling moderately better.  She hadn’t come to any conclusion and no great epiphany had struck her, but somewhere along the road into Lebanon, her thoughts had turned into nothing more than indistinct murmurs in the back of her mind as she looked around at the still bare branches of late winter trees.  She made her way down the iron steps of the mezzanine and into the deserted war room with its glowing table and mysterious blinking lights and backlit blue-green glass wall.  She headed to the kitchen to stash away the victuals she had picked up.  Stepping down into the room, she noticed Dean was there too, his head resting against the wall at one end of the table, his right leg up on the stool beside him.  His fingers were curled loosely around a glass of amber liquid, the bottle of whiskey within arm’s reach for easy refills.  It was 10 a.m., how many had he had since she went for her walk?

She busied herself putting away the food on the shelves and in the fridge.  She felt the back of her neck prickle and she knew Dean was watching her.  She shoved the plastic bags from her food errands into the garbage bin under the counter and looked up at him, leaning her hip against the island counter.  He watched her silently for a moment, his face set to neutral but with a tiredness in his eyes.  He looked down at the glass in his hands and slowly took a sip, the liquid disappearing past his lips, plenty still left in the glass as he closed his eyes again with a grimace and leaned his head back against the wall.

All her doubts and worries and her obsessive recounts of the events of the last couple of days seemed irrelevant somehow faced with Dean’s misery.  She felt again that intense yearning to make everything right.  She shoved all those things floating around in her mind into a box and closed it, shoving it into a deep recess of her mind.

She pushed off from the island, grabbing a glass tumbler from the shelf over the sink, and walked over to the table.  She tapped Dean’s leg and he moved it off the stool so she could sit down.  He watched her as she poured herself a whiskey and took a sip, the liquid tasting more bitter than usual, maybe because her brain kept telling her it was morning, and that only drunks drink that early.  An image of her father drinking a beer on the couch, while she ate her cereal before going to school, drifted up from her subconscious and she chased the disturbing thought away, taking another sip, and reminding her annoying brain that she’d been awake for fifteen hours and therefore was entitled to a fucking drink.

She put the tumbler down and looked over at Dean who was now staring at the bare table.  “So,” Delilah started, “What are we drinking to this morning?”  Dean didn’t react.  He took another sip of whiskey and put the glass down.  “Are we really not going to talk about this?”

He stared blankly in front of him, then passed his hand over his face, pressing into his eyes then looking away.  “I hit you,” his voice trembled and cracked, “I…”

Delilah watched him, his remorse genuine, he was looking as torn up about this as he’d had when he and Sam had been fighting.

“Yes.  You did,” she said emphatically, and as his eyes snapped to hers she held his gaze. “And it won’t happen again.”

“No!  Of course not, God no.  I never want to hurt you.”

Delilah watched his eyes and they didn’t waver from hers.  Satisfied, she looked away and took a sip of whiskey.  She looked down into the glass and chuckled.  She shook her head, smiling, and took another slow sip. Dean looked at her, perplexed.  She glanced at him and bent her head, her hair falling forward, she leaned on her hand, her elbow resting on the table.  She pressed her fingers to her eyes, the headache from earlier trying to make a comeback.

“All that driving and waking up in motel rooms in the afternoon. and back home the next day… it feels like time is just disappearing and suddenly I’m somewhere else.  I feel jet lagged, and I haven’t even been on a plane.”

Dean smiled at her sadly and raised his glass, “Welcome to the life.”

Delilah laughed tiredly and clinked her glass against his.  She drained her whiskey and he did the same.  He didn’t reach for the bottle to refill their drinks, and Delilah was glad: if he could stop himself, then that was a good thing.  She looked over at him and a sudden throb in her abdomen competed with the throb in her head.  She laughed, dropping her head in her palms again, shaking it slowly side-to-side.  Stupid brain and stupid body.  She looked back up at Dean and she felt the throb again.  God knew she had plenty of steam to blow off.

She looked at him coyly from her tilted angle.  Dean seemed to have sensed the change too because he was looking more alert, watching her.

“I don’t know what I need more, twenty hours of sleep or a good hard fuck,” she said.

Surprise flashed on his face, but he recovered quickly, tilting his head down and leaning forward to look up at her seductively, “If you want to sleep tonight, sleeping now is a bad idea.”

He lay his hand on her thigh and pressed into the muscle, making the slow, persistent throb pulse strongly.  She turned toward him and leaned forward, “What should I do then?” she said softly, playing with the edges of his open shirt.

His mouth came down on hers, demanding a response and she gave it, throwing herself into the kiss, slipping her tongue past his parted lips.  He reached for her across the gap between the stools and pulled her into his lap, her legs straddling him.  She rocked her hips against him, using the ground for leverage.  His hand closed over her breast and he kissed down her neck sucking a bruise on her collar bone.  His touch flooded her system with hormones, setting her body on fire and she clung to him, rocking against him again.  She wanted him, needed him so much.  Her mind, body and soul ached for him.  Always.

When the clothing started coming off, Delilah pulled him to her room and they fell into bed.  The pleasure of their interlocked bodies mingling with her rioting emotions.  Dean thrust into her hard, his own body working to find release from the stress of the last few days.  She moaned in his ear and he grunted into hers, their bodies pressing together, his weight bearing down on her as she wrapped her legs around his lower back, pulling with each of his pushes more and more desperately as her orgasm built up in intensity until the wave of pleasure washed over her, taking her worries and stress away with it when it receded.

They lay together afterwards, panting and sweating, looking at each other, as he ran his fingers slowly up and down her arm, his body still covering hers, his head beside hers on the pillow, his weight shifted to the side so she wouldn’t be crushed. Delilah was feeling strangely awake, or aware, like, somehow, this moment was important and she needed to remember all the details.  At the same time, she felt so good and calm and relaxed, basking in the glow, that her filters and barriers came down and her heart beat loudly in her chest.  She was bursting to say something.  Something Sam told her was a construct that didn’t belong in a hunter’s life.  But damn it, she needed to say it… and maybe Dean needed to hear it too.  She took a deep breath as he kissed her cheek gently and she let it out, the words “I love you,” blowing out of her like a whisper on a breeze.

Dean pulled away slowly and looked at her for a moment, not saying anything as he leaned up on his elbow, his eyes fixed on hers.  She tried to understand what was going through his head while trying not to freak out that maybe she had said the wrong thing.

“Are you sure?” he asked her, looking and sounding vulnerable.

Delilah thought about it for a moment, really thought about it, and she reached the same conclusion she’d reached a moment ago; that flutter in her chest she’d been feeling since the hunt in Washington, and maybe even before, was love, and she wanted him to know that.

“I love you, Dean.”

The bored look in his eyes was the first sign that something was wrong.  A chill swept down her spine and squeezed her heart as, slowly, he pulled away from her without saying anything.  He reached for something on the floor and then stood up, pulling his jeans up and walking out of the room, leaving her confused and upset.

She shook herself, chiding herself for her stupidity.  She had surprised him, that’s all.  She knew how he was, why did she feel the need to ruin their perfectly good… whatever with that bullshit?  Stupid!  Still, she couldn’t help but feel the emptiness left behind by his silence as she got dressed, fully intending to continue with the plan to stay awake until night.

She went through the day like a zombie, feeling a strange numbness inside while she moved around the bunker, not really doing anything, just going through the motions of their routine as the darkness that had been pressing in on her all the way home, weighed her down once more and the light was sucked out of her a little.

Delilah managed to stretch out her waking hours until 10 p.m., saying good night to Sam in the library as she left him to his books and computer, back at searching for Abaddon.  Tired as she was though, when she crawled under the blankets, her eyes were suddenly wide open in the room’s darkness and she couldn’t find any trace of the exhaustion that had plagued her all day.  Worst of all, confronted by a lack of distractions, her brain started playing over those carefully stored away memories and thoughts, Dean’s leaving her adding itself to the mix.

Frustrated, she turned on the bedside lamp.  The little red and white teddy sitting in the fan of light stared at her, mocking her, holding its _Be mine_ heart and Delilah felt the breath pressed out of her by the crushing weight on her chest.  She turned away from the stuffed toy and grabbed one of her novels from the shelf above the bed.  As soon as she started reading, her eyes started feeling heavy and it became a struggle to concentrate on the words.  After reading over the same paragraph three times, she figured it was time to try sleeping again.  She turned off the lamp, pointedly ignoring the bear, and snuggled down under her blankets, resting her head on the pillow and closing her eyes.

She was wide awake again.  Delilah rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling.  This was so ridiculous.  Her mind just kept going over and over what had happened, and it was pointless!  What’s done is done and nothing can change that, so why obsess over it?  Goddamnit! Why wasn’t her stupidass brain listening to her?  She turned her head towards the bedside table and grabbed her phone.  It was 11:00.  She’d been trying to sleep for less than an hour.  It was going to be a long night if she couldn’t get this shit off her mind.  She briefly considered heading into town and grabbing a drink at the bar.  Maybe Keith was working and he could lend a friendly ear… minus all the demons and angels crap of course.  What day was it?  Tuesday?  Wednesday?  Her phone told her it was in fact Tuesday.  She put it down and slung her arm over her eyes, frustrated. She really didn’t feel like going to the bar, she just wanted to get some fucking sleep.

She threw off the blankets and got up, thinking about going to the kitchen, maybe get a snack, or just stare absently at the fridge for a while until her brain shut down.  She slipped on her flip flops and threw on the thick flannel shirt that was lying on the floor.  She put it on over her tank top and shorts, using it like a dressing gown.  She was halfway to the kitchen before she realized it was Dean’s shirt she had picked up from where he had left it earlier.

She felt more miserable than ever as she wandered the dimly lit bunker hallways, letting her feet guide her.  It wasn’t until she found herself in the curved stairs behind the library that she realized she wasn’t even in the right part of the building.  Why would she come here?  She walked down the steps that led her to the left-hand hallway on the other side of the bunker.  She kept going and turned left at the next split, her feet stopping in front of door 21.

She glanced down at the grate in the bottom of the door and noticed that there was a blueish, flashing light coming from inside – the TV was on.  Delilah knocked on the door and waited.  “Yeah?” came Sam’s confused greeting.

“It’s me,” she said, suddenly shy and confused about knocking on Sam’s door in the middle of the night, what if she was interrupting…  What the hell was she doing there anyways?

Her concerns were unfounded though when Sam opened the door, some movie she didn’t recognize playing on the television.  He was dressed in his jogging pants and a navy-blue V-neck t-shirt and his hair was slightly mussed up, but his face showed only concern, his eyebrows pulled together as he looked at her.

“Sorry, Sam.  I couldn’t sleep.  Don’t know what I’m doing here.  Sorry I disturbed you.  I’m gonna go back to my room now.”

Her movements betrayed her words though as her feet stayed firmly planted in the hallway outside Sam’s room.  She kept her eyes cast down, and found herself musing about how large Sam’s feet were, especially compared to her own size 7s.  She shook herself again and crossed her arms on her chest while she felt the prickle of Sam’s eyes on her.  Gently, he said, “I was just going to watch a movie.  Do you wanna join me?”

Delilah’s heart felt ready to burst, they hadn’t done that in what felt like forever.  She nodded, still not looking at him, but yearning for his easy friendship, and he stepped back, holding the door wider for her.  She walked in and crawled onto Sam’s unreasonably rock hard mattress, kicking off her flip flops.  She placed a pillow against the headboard and leaned back, slipping her bare legs under the blankets to warm them.  Sam came around the other side of the bed and sat down against the headboard too, flipping the hair out of his face as he grabbed the remote.

“Anything you want to watch?” he asked her, and Delilah was thankful that he wasn’t asking any questions about why she was there, instead of with his brother.

“Just whatever you’re watching is fine.  Unless it’s porn. That could get awkward.”

Sam laughed, making her smile sadly, and he agreed that it would be awkward.  Delilah tried to focus on the movie, but just like with her book, she found that her eyes kept shutting on their own and she was missing bits of dialogue.  Her head connected with Sam’s muscular upper arm and she startled away confused.  Sam kept his eyes on the screen, but lifted his arm, inviting her to fold into his side and, after a short hesitation, she did.

Cradled in his arm, his hand resting casually on her hip, Delilah felt some of the tension inside release its hold on her and a few silent tears rolled down her cheek and into his cotton t-shirt.  She curled up her legs, resting them against his and this time, when she closed her eyes, she finally fell asleep, the darkness wrapping her tightly like a blanket.

⭐

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :'-(


	6. Alex, Annie, Alexis, Ann

She was startled awake by a loud piercing ring tone and she was confused and disoriented in the dark room. She was even more confused when Sam’s sleep rusty voice answered, coming from the warm body she was nestled against.  Slowly her memories from the night before came to her and she sat up abruptly when she realized that Sam must have fallen asleep too.  Maybe he hadn’t wanted to disturb her after the movie was over.  Still, it had left her in the awkward position of waking up, cradled against his chest in the early morning hours.  She pushed that aside when she registered what he was saying into the phone.

“Are you sure it was a vamp?”  Delilah couldn’t make out what the other voice was saying, the words too muffled for her to hear properly.  She thought, though, that the voice belonged to a woman.  “Alright, give us a few hours and we’ll be there… Right.  K, bye.”

Sam tapped the end button on the screen, and it flashed the time before he put it back down on his lamp table, 5:30 a.m.  She reeled, suddenly realizing she had been there all night.  Her mind was buzzing about the implications of sleeping in another man’s bed, years of bad TV plots swimming up and telling her that she may have just ruined everything.  She fought back though with the argument that nothing had happened… and the TV laughed at her.

Sam turned towards her, the sheets rustling, and she became very aware that she was still in bed with her boyfriend/lover/whatever’s brother.  She scrambled out from under the covers, the cold air hitting her blanket warmed legs, driving the inappropriateness of the situation further home.  Sam turned on the bedside lamp, and a warm yellow glow lit up the room, the bed with its tangled sheets, and the giant man lying in it.  He was leaning up on his elbow, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and running his hand through his messy hair.  He didn’t seem to have noticed her discomfort.  “That was Jody.  Says she might have a situation in Sioux Falls she needs us to take care of.”

Jody.  The name was familiar, but it took her startled brain a few seconds to process.  Jody was one of the hunters he had called on their way back from Milton.  If she was a hunter though, why would she need help with a vamp?  Sam got out of bed, yawning as he slowly started up the morning machine.  “Did you want to go get Dean?  He won’t want to be left behind for this.”

Sam walked past where she was standing frozen like a deer in headlights and went out through the door, turning left, no doubt heading for the shower room.  Dean… what would she tell him if he asked where she had been all night? Delilah turned right, down the hallway outside Sam’s room, heading up to the war room and across to the kitchen to start the coffee maker.

Dean was already sitting there, fully dressed, a cup and his laptop in front of him.  He sipped at his hot coffee while scrolling down a news article.  He turned to look at her when she walked in and he paused, taking in her appearance.  “Did you fall asleep in your chair again?  I went by your room earlier, but you weren’t there.”

Delilah quickly ran through a few scenarios in her mind, trying to find an excuse for why she hadn’t been in her room.  She could just let him continue to assume that she’d been on the mezzanine, but in her experience, if she lied about where she had been, it would make it look like it was a bigger deal than it was.  And so, honesty… best policies and stuff.

“I couldn't sleep, so I watched a movie with Sam.”  He turned to look at her again, but his face was unreadable and she had no idea how to interpret his look.  She decided to push on, “Anyways, we gotta go.  There’s a case in Sioux Falls.”

For a moment, Dean’s frown intensified, and then his face relaxed, “Sioux Falls?  Jody in trouble?”

“She’s the one who called.  Anyways, I’m gonna go get dressed, I guess, and pack.”

Dean nodded, frowning again as he looked at her pensively.  She played with the shirt cuffs hanging over her hands and then turned and walked out the side door to the kitchen, heading up the hallway to her room, perplexed.  That could’ve been much worse she told herself, relieved.  At least it didn’t seem like he was ignoring her.  He had come by her room earlier, had he been looking for her?  Did he want to tell her something?  Had she missed the chance to hear Dean’s side of this?  Delilah’s racing thoughts were swirling in her head again and she tried her best to calm the maelstrom, but with little effect.

The three of them packed up the Impala, Delilah feeling like the car had barely even rested since their last hunt and now they were off again.  She sat up front this time, Sam taking the backseat to spread out his files and books.  She was reviewing her long ago notes on vampires on her tablet, trying to brush up her lore to make sure she could keep up.  When she had questions, Dean answered them patiently, just like he’d done many times before when they had first started hunting together.  They had taken care of vampires a couple of times since the abduction that led her to meet the Winchesters in the first place, but it had always been lone vamps.  From what Jody had told Sam, it sounded like they might have to deal with a nest, and who knew how many vampires they would be facing.  Best to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

What she hadn’t been prepared for was the warm, familiar welcome from the slim, pixie faced, short-haired, brunette Sheriff of Sioux Falls.  Jody was a friggin’ sheriff?  Delilah grew increasingly curious about how a sheriff came to be friendly with a couple of outlaws like Sam and Dean.  It was smiles all around as the Winchesters rolled out of the Impala and walked towards her.

“Jody,” Sam said, looking glad, “How’s the shoulder?”

“Eh,” she said, rolling her right shoulder stiffly, “Only aches when it rains.  How you boys been?”  Delilah approached where the three of them were huddling, noticing the steadily falling drops of rain from the South Dakota sky as Sam and Dean gave contradicting answers: Dean claiming things were peachy while Sam’s more honest touch-and-go, rang truer.  “I know the feeling,” the sheriff said distractedly, staring past the boys’ shoulders at Delilah, who had tucked her hands into her jean jacket pockets.  “Picking up strays, boys?  Who’s this?”

“Jody, this is Delilah.  Delilah, Sheriff Jody Mills,” Sam introduced them.

Jody’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, “Banshee in Nashville Delilah?” she asked, aiming her question at Sam.  It was Delilah’s turn to be surprised, Sam had told someone about her as far back as that July case?  Sam confirmed she was the same girl and Jody turned back to look her over more closely.  She seemed satisfied because a large smile stretched her features showing two rows of pearly white teeth as she held out her hand towards Delilah.  She took it and Jody gave her a squeeze as they shook, “Welcome to the fold, Delilah.”

Dean spoke up as the sheriff released her hand. “So, what you got for us?” he asked her, his tone all business.  The sheriff opened the trunk of her police cruiser, revealing the mess wrapped in a tarp inside: blood and a headless body, the severed head sitting in its own lap.  Sam reached in and pulled back the top lip while Dean and Jody looked around, ready to fend off potential witnesses to what the sheriff was hiding in her trunk.

Sam straightened up again, looking at Jody, “Uh, yeah.  That’s a vamp alright,” he said softly.

“I dunno Sammy,” started Dean, sounding almost cheerful as he looked at his brother shaking his head, “Looks like Jody might not need our help anymore.”

“Oh, they grow up too fast,” teased Sam, as well.

“Don’t they?” added Dean, pulling Delilah’s first smile of the day as she looked at the stretched lips on all their faces.  She felt sad, suddenly, watching this smiling Dean, reminded of the light-hearted man he sometimes was.

“Yeah, joke all you like,” said Jody, “There’s more where this came from.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Sam, switching back to hunting mode.

“My men brought in a runaway last night,” Jody explained, laying out the facts like in a report, peppering it with her impressions.  “There’s no I.D. on her… actually, nothing on her except for a bus ticket out of Nebraska.  Total Jane Doe.  She won’t even give me her name.  Girl’s basically feral, she’s got zero manners, didn’t even thank me for saving her.  Anyhow, this thing went to plenty of trouble to get at her.  And to hear him tell it,” she nodded towards the closed trunk and the body inside, “The “others” will want her at least as bad as he did.”

“Sounds like a nest,” Sam said, Dean agreeing with him.

“Nest?” reacted Jody, “I’m guessing that’s not half as cute and cozy as it sounds.”

“Oh, I’m afraid not,” said Dean apologetically.  “Fact is, this girl you’re holding could be a vampire herself.”

Jody didn’t really react to that one, simply turning around and leading the way into the station.  She seemed resigned to the fact that there were things out there that were odd to say the least, and Delilah wondered about the circumstances that led her to the hunters’ life. Although, Delilah realized, she wasn’t completely in, not like Sam and Dean and her.  No, Jody seemed to have one foot firmly planted in normality and the other dipping in the pool of weird.  That must be quite the balancing act, she mused as the four of them headed into the Sheriff’s station to interrogate the girl Jody had in custody, the one the vampire had tried to get.

Jody set them up in an interview room, sitting the tall, teenage girl down at the table, her wrists in cuffs.  She had soft, refined features in her otherwise square face with high, defined cheekbones, long black hair cascading down to one side and matching soft, long eyelashes contouring her large, startlingly clear blue eyes.  Sitting at the table, she was looking sullen and tight-lipped.

Jody addressed her, “These are agents Wilson and Fisher of the FBI.  They have a few questions for you.”

The girl didn’t seem to have registered what the sheriff had said and she kept her eyes on the window behind Dean and Delilah.  Sam had stayed in the bull pen, to wait with the sheriff for the DNA analysis results to come in.  She looked at the girl whose eyes were fixed on the bright window and found that odd.  Vampires were photosensitive: sunlight alone wouldn’t kill them, but it’s unpleasant.  She remembered the hitchhiker she had picked up and how she had been wearing those large sunglasses even in the grey overcast dusk.

“We’re going to start with a dental I.D.” Dean said, gesturing to Delilah as he leaned his hands on the table across from where the girl was sitting.

Delilah slipped on a pair of latex gloves from the analysis kit Jody had given her so they could check for fangs.  She pulled a long cotton swab from a sealed paper package and approached the dark-haired girl who was looking at her with unveiled hatred in her eyes.  Delilah asked her to open her mouth, but she just glared at her, those blue eyes nearly as intense as Castiel’s though they were a lighter hue.  Delilah turned to look at Dean and he raised his eyebrows as if to say, what’s stopping you? And she turned back to the girl and grabbed her chin firmly.  She ground her teeth together, making it difficult to see her gums as she tried to free her chin.  Delilah held on though and stuck the cotton swab in her mouth pulling down her lower lip and pressing along the gum line, trying to get fangs to come out.  The girl kept struggling, which made it difficult, but in the end, Delilah was quite sure there wasn’t a tooth out of place in the girl’s mouth, much less a hidden set of extra fangs.

She let go of her chin and pretended to put the cotton swab away as she walked around the girl.  Dean looked up at her expectantly from his spot and she shook her head, no.  That’s when the girl started to speak, staring right at Dean.

“Wilson and Fisher? You two are FBI then I’m Taylor Swift.”  Delilah glanced at Dean as he kept his gaze fixed on the girl, a calculating look in his eyes.  She went on, “That wasn’t a dental I.D., it was a fang check.  You’re hunters.”

Delilah was surprised, vampire or not, the girl definitely knew something.  Dean looked unaffected though as he quickly adjusted to her attitude, shedding the FBI guise in a second.

He straightened up slowly, “And you’re alive, because hunters trained the sheriff.  I think the first words out of your mouth should be a thank you.”

Delilah took off the gloves and tossed them in the garbage can in the corner then came to stand beside Dean, looking at the girl.  Her eyes flicked up to her then she hunched in on herself, looking upset and bored, her lips sealed once again.  Dean started moving around the room slowly as he pressed on with his questions.  “So, who were you to this vamp, anyway?” He moved up beside her and sat back against the edge of the table.  “What’s so special about you?”  She kept her eyes down and her lips shut.  “Is there a nest?”

As the girl turned her head to glance at Dean, something on her neck caught Delilah’s attention.  There were marks, partly concealed by her jean shirt collar: bite marks.  But what seemed most odd about them is that they weren’t fresh.  In fact, some of them were faint and white, like they had healed many years before.  Delilah tilted her head to see better, but it caught the girl’s attention whose head snapped back to her and she pulled up her shirt collar, hiding what Delilah had already seen.  What the hell did that mean?  Ok, if there were multiple bites, she could get that a nest had fed on her, more than one vamp equals more than one bite, but the varying degree of healing made no sense.

Her musings were interrupted by the sheriff opening the door and telling them the DNA results were in.  Dean turned back to the girl, “Don’t go anywhere,” he said with a sarcastic smile, then he headed out the door and Delilah followed him.

They rejoined Sam who was sitting at one of the detective’s desks in the relatively quiet bullpen.  There, Jody handed her a missing person’s report, a picture of a smiling eight-year-old with the same long black hair and blue eyes as the sullen teen in the other room looking back at her.  Jody gave them the run down on her history.  Her name was Annie Jones.  She had been reported abducted outside of Kenosha in 2006.  She was raised by an elderly grandparent, who was now deceased.  There was no living kin on record either.

Jody looked up from the report, lowering her voice, “You think the vamps are the ones who took her?”

Delilah glanced over at Dean who was looking pensive.  He kept his voice down too as he spoke, “Eight years is a long time for a human to live with vampires without getting killed or turned.”

Delilah thought again about those bite marks on the girl’s neck.

“You’re the experts,” Jody said, “but there was something… familiar about the way this vamp talked to her.”

“Do vampires keep humans to feed on them?” Delilah asked the group, a deep frown on her face.

“It’s not unheard of for them to keep blood slaves, yeah,” Sam answered, “What made you think of that?”

Delilah gestured to her own neck as she told them about the fang marks on the girl and how they had looked layered.  Jody looked at them wide-eyed.

“We’ve seen it before,” Dean said in response to the question in her eyes, “Vampires keeping people as pets: human feed bags.  Sometimes these slaves stay loyal to their captors.”

Delilah turned to look at him, surprised.  Vampiric Stockholm syndrome… great.  Jody said what had been running through her mind, and Dean confirmed that the girl was more than likely protecting the nest.  Jody looked horrified, like she could not even begin to wrap her head around the idea that a human would want to protect vampires who were feeding on her.  Delilah felt much the same way, why would anyone protect their abusers?  Not talk about it, out of shame or fear, she could understand, as a teen she had lived through that herself, but out of loyalty?  What could this girl possibly owe these vampires who had taken her away from her home and family?

Sam and Dean went back into the interrogation room to try and get more information out of her.  Delilah stayed outside to watch through the observation window.  She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she kept her eyes on Dean and his serious, focused face.  She found her mind drifting away from the current case and to happier times with him, his moments of tenderness and his smiles that seemed so rare these past few weeks.  She leaned up against the wall and watched him openly, wishing he would take her in his arms, wishing she had never told him those three words that had scared him off the day before.  She chewed on her nails as her stray thoughts restarted the obsession reel, which she tried desperately to suppress.

It was Jody who snapped her out of it as she walked up to her, handing her a coffee.  Delilah took it from her with a “Thanks,” and sipped at the bitter, hot liquid, wishing for sugar.

“You know,” started the sheriff, “At first, I thought you were Sam’s girl… he seems more the type.  He was the one who told me about you way back, too.”  She paused expectantly, but Delilah just kept sipping at her coffee, her eyes supposedly on the interrogation, but really just on the green-eyed Winchester.  “But now, seeing how you’re pining after Dean… I wonder.”

Delilah glanced at Jody, who was watching her with her penetrating brown eyes, trying to figure her out.  She felt a strange pull towards the older woman, who looked incredibly young to be the sheriff of this relatively large town, she didn’t look a day over forty.  Delilah found herself wanting to ask her about the Winchesters.  What could she tell her about the men she’d been sharing her life with these past months?

She turned around again, shifting her gaze back to the interrogation room as Sam and Dean stood up and headed for the door.  Dean shut the door behind him and she walked up to him as Sam and Jody headed back to the bullpen.  She kept her arms tucked tightly against her chest to stop herself from touching him, trying to keep their professional guise.

“So?  Did you find out anything?” she asked him.

“Naw.  She’s not going to give up the nest.  Sam’s going to try and track it down with that bus ticket she had.”

Dean sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing back at the girl in the interrogation room.  He took a step away, guiding Delilah ahead of him, as they followed to where Sam and Jody were working on a computer.  They stood to the side and Delilah twirled her coffee cup in her hands awkwardly, keeping an appropriate distance from him as he leaned against a windowsill.  All she wanted though was for him to chase away the emptiness she felt inside.  She forced her thoughts back to the case.

“Did you figure out why she won’t let us help her?”

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat, “She thinks these vamps are her family.”  Delilah was surprised as he kept going, “Calls the head vamp Mama and the others her brothers.  Where did you get that?”

Delilah frowned and looked up at him, confused.  He was looking at her coffee expectantly.  It was still hot in her hand, and she’d only taken a sip or two, the liquid much too bitter for her taste. She handed it to him and he took it, looking like she had just handed him a million bucks.  He sniffed it suspiciously then looked back at her, “Wait, you didn’t ruin it, did you?”

Delilah rolled her eyes, how the hell do you ruin bad, cop station coffee? “No, Dean.”

He brought the cup to his lips and took a gulp, letting out a satisfied sigh, “Oh yeah, that’s good.”

She shook her head and reached for him automatically, laying a hand on his black cotton clad middle before she remembered herself and pulled away, pretending to have removed lint from his shirt.  She avoided looking at his face, staring at the back of Sam’s head instead as he opened yet another web browser window.

“Mills, you ok?” Dean’s concern made her look up at the sheriff who was standing nearby, staring blankly forward and fidgeting with her hand.

“No wonder she didn’t thank me,” she said absently, “That creep was her brother.”

“That creep was a vamp.  You did her a favour,” Dean told her.

Jody nodded her head slowly, then seemed to snap out of it, answering Dean’s earlier question.  “I’m fine,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.  “You know, mostly I’m just hung up on the name.  Alex and Annie… they’re so close already, why change it?”

Her musings went unanswered, none of them having any insights on that point.  Delilah didn’t really spare it a thought either, so many other details to focus on.  Sam stopped clicking at the computer and looked up at them. “Ok, so we know from her ticket that Alex hopped a bus out of O’Neill, Nebraska, right?”  Jody hummed encouragingly and he went on, “Obviously, it’d be better going in with a firm location, but the town ain’t that big.  There are no caves or other natural hiding places.”

“Alright,” said Dean, “So, go in, canvas it cold.”

Sam looked back down at the computer, “Well, I worked together a short list of possible nest locations.” Jesus, Sam worked fast, “There’s an empty fire station, four or five derelict homes.  Nothing we couldn’t hit in a day.”

“Okay,” said Dean, nodding at the sheriff and heading towards the exit, Sam grabbing his list off the desk and standing to follow him.  Delilah took a deep breath and followed them.  _More driving,_ she thought with a sigh.

“You sure you’re alright to babysit by yourself?” Dean asked Jody over his shoulder.

“Oh, well, girl’s a flight risk,” she said as she followed them down the hall, “Not exactly friendly, but I think I can handle babysitting detail.”

The boys stopped and turned around to look at the sheriff, Delilah taking a step to the side.

“The station’s been made,” Sam said, “It might be worth heading upwind for a while.  I mean… vamps are trackers.”

“Terrific,” the sheriff said, looking concerned as her confidence dropped a little.  “I’ve got an old family cabin outside of town?” she added after a moment.

“That’ll work,” said Dean.

“Ok.  Well, shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows,” she said looking around the station, “me being gone for a day.”

“Why don’t Lilah stay with you?  She has experience with fangs, in case you get into trouble.”

Delilah glanced at Dean, wanting to take the show of confidence at face value but unable to shake that he was just doing what he always did: trying to keep her away from the main action.  She was fuming inside, but she didn’t want to pick a fight with him in the middle of a police station.  “Yeah,” she said trying to sound cheerful and smiling tensely at the sheriff, “Sounds like a party.”

“This is all just precautions anyways,” said Jody, “You guys are gonna get the jump on these vamps and be back here before they even realize their kin’s missing, right?”

The sheriff was smiling confidently at Sam and Dean who nodded with smiles on their faces, and started down the hallway again.  The sheriff was going to meet Delilah out front with Alex as soon as she was done with the paperwork for her release and left instructions for Frank, the deputy who’d be in charge while she was gone.

The three hunters made their way back outside, where the sun was just piercing through the rain clouds, making the ground steam around the Impala, pearls of water all over her black paint.  Dean unlocked and opened the trunk, handing his and Sam’s duffel bags to Sam who dropped them on the back seat, then leaned up against the car’s side, waiting.  Dean took her bag and propped it up on the lip of the trunk while he lifted the dark grey felt fake bottom and leaned a shot gun against it to hold it up revealing the hidden Winchester arsenal, complete with grenade launcher.  Dean pulled out a machete with its case and made to open her bag and stick it in.

“Don’t bother, I’ve already got mine in there,” she said bitterly.

Dean didn’t say anything as he put the machete back.  “You got any dead man’s blood?” he asked her without looking at her, picking up a black pouch and pulling out two of the five syringes.  He handed them to her when she said no and she put them in her inside jacket pocket.  “What about your gun.  You packing?”  Delilah didn’t answer, angry at him.  So what if they were fighting… or whatever was going on, he didn’t get to choose what she did or where she went.  When she didn’t answer, Dean looked at her, “What?” he asked, irritated.

“Dean, I told you.  I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I’m not alone, Sam’s coming with me,” he said dismissively.

“Yeah?  And did you tell him about the mark?” She was out of line and way over reacting, but she couldn’t help it.  Why was he acting like such a jerk suddenly?  What the hell did she do to deserve it?

Sam looked over at them from where he was leaning against the car, he was looking concerned, but didn’t say anything. Dean moved closer to her, lowering his voice threateningly.  “Keep your goddamn voice down.  You’re staying with Sheriff Mills, got it?  End of discussion.”

Delilah didn’t answer.  When did he start talking to her like that?  She relented, choosing not to anger him further, cowed by that dark, empty look in his eyes that seemed to be making increasing appearances.  He slammed the trunk closed, and dropped her bag to the ground at her feet.  By this time, the sheriff had already come out, guiding a handcuffed Alex to the car and sat her down in the back seat.  She was waiting for Delilah, watching quietly as she and Dean argued.

He moved to get into his own car, but Delilah grabbed his arm in a last-ditch effort to understand what was happening to them.  “Why are you being like this?” she asked him, unable to keep the anguish out of her voice.

He pulled his arm away but didn’t look at her, “I’m not being like anything.”

As Dean walked past his brother, Sam straightened up with a frown on his face.  Was he maybe trying to put two-and-two together about her late-night visit?  Trying to figure out exactly what had happened between her and Dean?  Well, hopefully, when he figured it out, he could tell her, because she had no idea what the problem was.  She turned away, not sure where to look or stand anymore.  Her gaze crossed Sheriff Mills’ contemplative look, making Delilah’s skin crawl with embarrassment.  She breathed deeply as the sheriff got into the driver’s seat.

She was moving towards the sheriff’s car when Sam grabbed her, wrapping his long fingers around her upper arm, and turned her back towards him.  He wrapped his arms around her in a quick hug and released her again, the gesture hardly doing anything to mend the gaping hole that seemed to be opening up inside her.

“Be careful, Delilah.  Don’t take any chances.”

“Thanks, Sam.” She glanced towards Dean’s side of the car and then back to Sam. “Watch out for him, ok?”

“I always do.”

She nodded and moved around the white and brown cruiser and into the passenger’s seat, putting her bag down at her feet and staring out the window as the sheriff pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the boys to go hunt down the nest one state down.

The drive up to Jody’s cabin was quiet and uneventful, the sheriff keeping up a steady stream of generic banter all the way to the secluded wooden cabin nestled deep in the South Dakota woods.  “I have a lot of great memories of this place,” Jody said as the trees lining the narrow road flew by. “Used to come up here all the time.  First, as a kid with my parents and then with my…” she trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.  Delilah mostly blocked her out, too wrapped in her own misery to give a shit.

Jody pulled up the car in front of the cabin and switched off the engine.  Delilah grabbed her bag and stepped out, looking around at the late afternoon woods.  It looked like Jody had no neighbours for miles around, a perfect hiding spot.  The sheriff opened the back door to the cruiser and Alex stepped out of it, looking all around her at the thick tree trunks and the dark wood cabin.

“It’s a lot nicer than it looks from the outside,” she told them as she undid the girl’s cuffs.  Alex rubbed her wrists and looked off towards the leaf covered lane the car was parked in.  “F.Y.I. the woods around here?  Really easy to get lost in if you don’t know your way around.  Me, I know them like the back of my hand.”

Alex glanced over at Delilah who just stared right back.  “I got it,” she said, mustering up all the angsty, sarcastic tone only a teenager could deliver, “Don’t try running, you won’t get far.”

Jody unlocked the door to the cabin and Alex and Delilah followed her inside.  She went straight to the kitchen to put away the food she had brought to stock up the fridge.  Alex walked around the place, looking at everything with an air of boredom, like nothing could possibly interest her.  Delilah put her bag down by the door, eager to get moving.  Even if what she had to do was burn a body, anything that pulled her out of her own head was welcome.  Jody spoke up from the kitchen as she finished putting things away.

“This whole place runs on a generator.  Can you two keep yourselves occupied while I start that up?”

“Actually, J… Sheriff…”

“Please, call me Jody,” she said.

“Jody.  If you don’t mind, I’ve got a few things to do around here too… to keep us safe.  Starting with what you’ve got in the trunk.”

“Right.”  Jody tossed Delilah the car keys, “Let me know if you need any help.”

Delilah turned around, grabbing the salt, lighter fluid and a package of strong smelling herbs that Dean had stuffed into her bag and walked out the door. She opened the trunk and stared at the mess wrapped in the tarp again, glad there were no windows on this side of the cabin for Alex to watch her through.  If she truly thought this thing was her brother, she preferred the girl not see.

Using the tarp as leverage, and all her strength, she pulled the corpse from the trunk, grabbing the head by the hair, slightly grossed out, when it rolled away from her.  She dragged the body off into the woods a little ways, keeping the house in sight, heeding Jody’s warning about getting lost.  She made a quick makeshift pyre around the body, relieved the tree cover seemed to have kept the forest floor relatively dry from the rain.  She doused the body in lighter fluid and shook the salt box over it liberally.  She set the whole thing ablaze with a couple of matches. When the flames had engulfed the pyre, she took a handful of the foul-smelling herbs from the pouch and tossed it onto the fire, making her nose tingle and her eyes water.  No wonder this shit killed the vampire’s over-developed sense of smell.

She moved off to a more comfortable distance, finding a conveniently fallen tree and sitting on it, putting her hands in her pockets, staring into the flames, her mind blissfully blank.

Jody found her there a couple hours later, the last of the afternoon light gone from the sky, night descended on the now dark woods, the still burning pyre keeping her warm.  She sat down next to her on the fallen tree.

“Was gonna say that I shoulda brought s’mores, but pew!  What is that smell?”

Delilah chuckled keeping her eyes ahead but smiling, “Skunk cabbage, trillium and saffron.  Kills the scent.”

“I’ll bet!”  Jody stared at her for a moment, “You’re very pretty when you smile.  You should do it more often.”

Delilah smiled, laughing a little ironically, “Yeah,” she said, rubbing her tired eyes.

Jody went on, “So, you running credit card scams and impersonating federal agents like the boys back there?”  Delilah stiffened, did a cop just ask her if she was breaking the law?  Jody smiled, “Relax.  I know how the game works.  Besides, those boys do a hell of a lot more good than the bad they need to get by.  Hell of a life you chose.”

“Sometimes I think it chose me,” Delilah said softly.

“That’s a load of bull.” Jody said sternly, making Delilah look at her. “You can’t control what life throws at you, but you’re the one who chooses what to do with those things, not the other way around.”  Jody stared at her pointedly, like she wanted to make sure Delilah had heard her, then she pushed on, “So… how did you end up hunting with the Winchester boys?”

Delilah sighed, not sure she was ready to talk about anything with the near stranger, no matter how familiar she was with Sam and Dean.  “Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on our reluctant ward?”

“Bah.  She’s busy glowering at everything in there.  It’s not like she can go anywhere.  Right now, I want to get to know you.”

“Jesus… that’s not daunting at all,” Delilah muttered under her breath.  She paused to gather her thoughts, how does she sum up her life with the hunters?  Somehow, she didn’t think Jody would settle for the Cliffs Notes version she gave the Ghostfacers.  “What did Sam tell you?”

“Not much.  He told me y’all hunted down a banshee in Nashville.  I’m surprised he mentioned you at all.  Getting information out of either him or his brother is near impossible.  That’s why I remembered.  Figured you were important, just wasn’t expecting you to be involved with Dean.”

Delilah turned her head and looked at the short haired, cunning woman beside her.  She wasn’t going to ask how Jody knew, but if she had inferred their relationship just from what she saw today, Delilah wondered how she had interpreted their argument.  Jody pressed her again for her story and Delilah obliged reluctantly, starting with the night she picked up a hitchhiker on her way home from work and stopping with the circumstances that led her to be staying at the bunker, leaving out the details of her torture and the fact that Dean had left her and Sam at this point.  That was his story to tell or keep.

By the time she was done, the fire had pretty much stopped burning, nothing left of the vampire but ash and embers.  They stood up, and returned to the house, the hour getting late.  Delilah walked in, removing her jean jacket and hanging it on a peg on the wall, and headed for the living room to set a fire in the fireplace, the damp air making the cabin cold.  Jody looked around the open main room, with its support beams running down the centre of it, looking for something.

“Alex?” she called out.

Delilah looked around too, concerned, “You think she ran for it?”

Jody frowned as she looked to the side of the room at the wall dotted with doors.  One of them was ajar and Jody moved towards it quickly, waving Delilah off when she noticed her unclipping her gun.

Jody pushed open the door and turned on the light.  Delilah started walking towards her, but she shook her head, “It’s fine, she just passed out.”

Delilah approached the room as Jody stepped inside.  It was a bedroom, the black-haired girl asleep on the twin bed.  She noticed a large cork board, multi-coloured letters spelling the name Owen stuck to the wall above it, the board itself over flowing with ribbons and photos and postcards, the furniture around the room dotted with trophies and kids’ books and toys.  She spotted a picture on the dresser next to her and picked it up.  She easily recognized a younger Jody Mills with shoulder length hair, a wide smile on her face, a dark-haired man beside her, her arm around his shoulder and a young boy smiling at the camera.  _This picture was at most ten years old, where were her family now?_ Delilah wondered.  She looked again at the cork board frozen in time and a piece moved into place and she guessed what kind of tragedy had made Jody cross paths with the supernatural.  She put the picture back and watched as the sheriff walked over to the bed, looking down at the runaway girl pensively.

Delilah’s phone started vibrating in her pocket and she quickly stepped back out of the room to take the call.  It was Dean.  She really felt like not answering, but if he was calling, it must be related to the case.  She took a deep breath and tapped the answer button.

“Yeah.”

“Lilah, listen to me,” he said, the agitation in his voice making her instantly alert, “The vamps knew that Alex went to Sioux Falls, okay?  They’re probably already there.”

“They still need to find the cabin though, and I burned the herbs, their sense of smell will fizz out long before they find this place.”

“They killed two people at the bus depot to get the information, they can probably find out about the cabin the same way.  You got to get out of there.”  There was an urgency to his voice she just couldn’t ignore.

“Alright, Jody says she knows the woods around here, we’ll hide out there until morning and hopefully the sun will drive them off.”

“Good.  Listen, there’s something you need to know about Alex.”

“What is it?”

“You can’t trust her.  She’s a lure.  She’s the one who picks up victims and brings them to the nest.”

The memory of the hitchhiking vampire who had tricked her swam up.  Suddenly, headlights swept across the living room window and Delilah ducked down below the sill.

“Shit,” she said into the phone, “They’re here.”

“What?” Dean said raising his voice, alarmed.

“Right now, they’re already here.”

“We’re on our way.”

“Hurry.”

Delilah put the phone back in her pocket and kept low to the ground as she rushed back to where she had left Jody.  The sheriff was just closing the door behind her.  Seeing her face, she already knew something was up and they both rushed to their bags and pulled out their machetes.

“We have to get out of here, into the woods,” Delilah told her.

“I’ll get Alex, meet me at the back door.”

Delilah nodded, hitting the light switch on the wall and throwing the room into darkness.  The sound of breaking glass and Alex screaming from the bedroom told her it was already too late.  Jody threw herself at the bedroom door, but the intruder must have blocked it somehow because it only opened a tiny bit.  Delilah rushed towards her to help her as she yelled Alex’s name.

“They got her, we have to save her!  Let’s go,” Jody yelled at her, rushing around to the front door.

“No!  Jody, we have to be smart about this.”

“We need to save Alex!”

All Delilah saw was the vamp girl that long ago evening and she couldn’t care less about saving this low-life lure.  But Jody had already run out the door, and she couldn’t let her face an unknown number of vampires alone.  She rushed out after her, hearing Alex’s distant cries for help as she struggled with whoever had her.  It was so dark out in the woods, no light to see by other than the headlights of the truck, aimed at the house and blinding her.

In the shadows, she saw movement as she heard a woman’s voice yelling, _let’s go!_ One of the vampires had Jody, his body poised over where she lay on the ground.  He punched her, Jody falling back and not moving, and suddenly, he turned tail, heading for the truck that was already reversing back out of the drive.  Delilah let out a yell of rage as she ran after him.  He turned around, avoiding her swinging machete, moving faster than humanly possible and grabbing her arm.  She reached into her coat for the dead man’s blood, but he threw her to the side.  She flew through the air and landed badly on her shoulder and before she could get up again, he was on top of her.  He grabbed her around the throat and pulled her up, bending her back painfully as his teeth sank into her neck and shoulder.  She screamed in pain, feeling something wet run down her shoulder and soaking into her t-shirt.  She tried to get to her inside pocket, but she couldn’t reach anything as she felt the blood being pulled out of her, the vampire’s mouth making wet sucking noises in her ear as she lay trapped.

Without warning, he let her go and took off, running for the truck.  She tried to get up, but everything was dark in the receding lights of the truck.  She felt the ground give under her knees and she could see nothing, her heart beating in her ears slowly until she wasn’t aware of anything anymore.

⭐


	7. Nothing Else Matters

_Lilah, the voice was saying from deep inside the cave, the darkness so thick around her she couldn’t see who was speaking.  Lilah, come on, baby, it insisted, echoing around her, muffled by the damp stone.  She felt the gentle beating wings of a moth against her cheek and she tried to flip it away with her hand, but it kept coming back.  And that voice.  Why was that voice so achingly familiar?  Lilah!  Suddenly, a bright light pierced the darkness, and the moth’s wings became much heavier, tapping against her cheek. The voice became loud and clear in her ear as her head started aching, her neck on fire._

“That’s it, Lilah.  Come back to me.”

She opened her eyelids and large, green eyes, wide with fear were looking right at her.  She tried to swallow but her tongue felt huge in her dry mouth, like she’d been on one hell of a bender the night before.  “Dean?” she managed to whisper. And suddenly, his arms wrapped around her and he was kissing her, his lips pressed against hers as she fought off the last of the confusion in her head.  By the time she had raised her arms to hold on to him though, he had stepped away, pacing furiously a short distance away.  Her relief and comfort ebbing away again.

Delilah reached for the large tree trunk beside her, and used it as leverage to get herself on her feet, another wave of dizziness hitting her, but she managed to stay up, leaning back against the trunk.  She looked around, spotting Sam helping Jody up, the Impala’s headlights illuminating the area, the sky still night dark.  It couldn’t be much more than a couple of hours since the attack.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Dean’s anger, aimed entirely at her, made her quake, what had she done?  “I told you to get out of there, and you go and take on the whole fucking nest!”

Delilah felt the need to defend herself, unsure where the attack was coming from, she had been doing her job.  “We tried to get Alex back… They…”

Dean cut her off, stepping right up to her as she pressed back into the rough bark, “For a fucking lure?!” he yelled at her.  “You don’t risk your life for goddamn monster scum, Lilah!”

She was so confused, “Stop yelling at me!” she yelled back, utterly confused, “I’m sorry, okay?  I’m sorry.”

“Dean!” Sam’s yell sounded like a bark to her ears as he pulled his brother away and stood between them.  “Back off!  What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Dean stormed off, and Delilah’s legs turned to mush as she slowly sank to her knees on the damp, leaf covered ground.  Sam crouched down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder.  “I don’t understand,” she told Sam, trapped in her confusion.

“Hey!  Hey, listen to me.  You did nothing wrong.  He’s way out of line,” Sam said, looking her in the eye.  His eyes drifted down and he pulled at her shirt gently.  She winced as the fabric pulled at her bite wound.  Judging from Sam’s face, it was bad.

“What do we do now?” she asked Sam.

“Now, Dean and I go back to the nest and finish this.”

“How do you know they’ll go back?”

“They have no reason not to.  Question is, what are they gonna do when they find their brother dead.”

“We have to go back now, before we lose them.”  Delilah stood up again, the dizziness making her sway.

“Delilah, you’re hurt,” Sam tried to reason with her, “You’re in no shape to fight.”

“I’m not staying here, so forget it.”

“I’m coming too,” Jody said, stepping up beside them.

Sam straightened up, looking exasperated.  “Really, you two need to rest up.  Dean and I can handle the nest on our own.”

Jody was looking outraged, dried blood on her face, as she responded, “I don’t give a fig about the nest.  That girl was under my protection.  Whatever she did, she did because they made her.”

Dean came back towards them. “Oh, and we should just let her go because she suddenly grew a conscience?” he said.  He wasn’t yelling anymore but he was clearly still pumped.

“She’s a kid!” exclaimed Jody.

“Yeah, a kid who’s been playing vampire murder since before she was in braces,” barked back Dean.

Sam jumped in, maybe sensing the danger in the escalating argument, “Jody, he’s right.  At best, her loyalties are… screwed.”  He was speaking calmly, maybe trying to balance out his brother’s anger.

“How do you know she even wants to be saved?” threw out Dean. “For the last eight years, she’s been baiting the hook for an entire nest.  She’s got more blood on her hands than most monsters we kill.”

Delilah found herself agreeing with Sam and Dean, again seeing the vampire girl who would have lured her to a certain death, had they not shown up.

“Are you saying, she’s on your list?” Jody asked, sounding sick.

“Jody, we can’t trust her,” Delilah said thickly, her voice sounding like a dry croak.  God, she could use a glass of water.

Dean glanced at her quickly then turned back to Jody.  “Look, it sucks, okay?  It does.  But with hunting monsters comes harsh truths.  This is a clean-up mission.  It’s not a rescue.”

Clearly, that was the last straw for Jody.  She pushed past them and made a beeline for the Impala, idling in the drive.  “I’m coming,” she said, leaving no room for their arguments, “And if any of you lays so much as a hand on Alex, you’ll have to go through me.”

The boys were looking struck dumb faced with their inability to stop Jody from doing what she wanted, and Delilah felt some of her old back bone return, her confidence bolstered.  She glared up at Dean.

“I’m coming too,” she said firmly.

Dean turned back towards her, rolling his eyes.  “Everybody coming on this hunt, get in the car now.  We’re wasting time.”

He stomped off to the Impala and Sam pursed his lips.  “For the record, Delilah, I think this is a bad idea.  You lost a lot of blood.”

“I’m not staying here alone. And you and Dean need to take care of this nest, and Jody is hell bent on saving Alex.  I’ll stay in the car if I have to.”

Sam’s eyes locked on to hers as he seemed to think this over.  Dean suddenly laid on the Impala’s horn, making her jump.  Delilah and Sam looked his way, but nothing was visible beyond the glare of the headlights.  She felt Sam’s hand on her good shoulder directing her towards the car and she walked to it, still feeling like her legs were going to give out again any second.  She played it cool though because she didn’t want another argument with Sam or Dean about her staying behind.  Something glinted on the ground in the beam from the headlights and Delilah bent down to pick up her dropped machete.

It was only when she let herself fall into the back seat, putting the blade down on the car floor, that she realized Sam wasn’t with them.  He appeared a few seconds later, though, and pulled open the back door on Jody’s side.  She looked confused as he directed her to sit in the front seat.  The switch was done quickly and Sam dropped down beside Delilah.  As soon as his door was shut, Dean took off, turning the car around and making the wheels spin on the wet, leaf covered lane.

“Take your shirt off,” Sam said to her casually.

Delilah’s muddled brain couldn’t understand why Sam wanted her shirtless and her heart pounded in her chest.  She was staring at Sam’s broad shoulders as he leaned over the front seat and addressed Jody.  When he turned back towards her, he had the med kit in his hands and was rifling through it, his intent clear and rather obvious now.  Delilah felt ridiculous, of course Sam wanted to fix her up, and she sat forward and pulled her shirt over her head gingerly, wincing when the fabric pulled away from the sticky wound.  He slid down the bench towards her and turned her to face the window, gently inspected the torn skin.  Delilah glanced up at the rear-view mirror and she caught Dean staring at them.  She held his gaze a moment, trying to read him, before he looked away, back to the road.  Sam did a quick job of cleaning and patching her up, first disinfecting the bite with antiseptic then covering it with a bandage, pressing down on the edges of the tape to make sure it was secure.  As soon as he was done, he handed her a fresh shirt that she had packed in her bag, which was back at Jody’s cabin.  Must be where he had disappeared to.  She slipped the clean shirt on over her head and after a moment of hesitation, cranked down the window and tossed her blood-stained shirt out at the trees whizzing by.  She rolled the glass back up and leaned back against the seat, closing her eyes, an incredible weariness taking over as she started to shiver.

“You okay?” asked Sam, ever watchful.

She opened her eyes and tried to focus on him, but couldn’t, a headache pounding behind her eyes as headlights swept past them heading in the opposite direction. _When did they get back onto the main road?_ she wondered.  The cold felt like it was seeping into her bones, making her shiver harder as her body tried to warm her up.

“Can you turn up the heat, Dean?” she asked softly as she curled into a ball, leaning towards the door, trying to stay warm.  Arms wrapped around her and pulled her against a warm body.  She turned over and snuggled into the heat, laying her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder.  “Don’t leave me, Dean,” she mumbled as she wrapped her arms around him, his heartbeat in her ear, and held on tightly, the soothing pitch blackness overtaking her.

~

She woke up slowly, pulling herself back to consciousness, staring at the black leather of the car seat.  She straightened up cautiously, aware that her head and body were still aching as the thick, scratchy wool blanket fell from around her shoulders to her hips.  She looked at it confused and then at the brightening horizon in the east.  Where was she now?  She was clearly in Dean’s Impala, but where that was, and where Sam, Dean and Jody had gone, was quite the mystery.  She pushed the blanket off her legs and turned her body to look out the windows around the car in the growing morning brightness.  All she could see was field, and strangely, a school bus.  _They couldn’t be that far_ , she thought as she grabbed her machete, determined to go find the group and join the fight.

They had parked the car in what looked like an empty lot on the edge of a large field.  The yellow bus blocked the Impala from view from the lot next door and the road, although she could see a few houses a mile or so away.  Delilah cautiously walked around the front end of the school bus, holding her machete firmly.  Most of the disorientation from the blood loss had gone, and she was able to focus on what was around her, ignoring the deep ache in her body and treading lightly, in case the dizziness returned.  She leaned around the bus’s nose and saw a grove of leafless trees separating her from the next lot.  She moved up to the trees and noticed a boot print in the slushy snow.  She couldn’t tell if it was Sam’s or Dean’s but the direction of the owner was clear.  She bent forward, trying to stay low to the ground while navigating the patches of snow and mud that separated her from the dilapidated looking white farmhouse, many of the windows covered up by wooden boards.  She glanced to her left, noticing the red spray staining the snow in front of a large, yellow wood chipper; flashes from a long-forgotten movie that had, until now, been too gruesome to take seriously paraded in her mind, making her stomach churn.

She turned away and slowly walked up the stairs to the back door of the house, keeping alert in case she should be ambushed.  She looked all around the small back porch, but there were no signs of life, no movement coming from anywhere that she could see, the boarded-up windows blocking her view of inside, but also concealing her own presence.  She lay a hand on the doorknob, feeling her heart beat accelerate as she tried to take a steadying breath.  Would she ever get used to the rush of adrenaline?  She turned the stiff latch and pushed the door open slowly, a soft creak making her grab it to stop the motion.  Delilah held the wood in place, listening to see if she had given away her presence.  She heard voices nearby, but luckily, they didn’t seem alarmed.  Neither were they familiar, though.

Delilah crept through the partly opened door and slowly moved down the narrow entrance hall, leaving the door open, preferring to risk a draft than making the hinges squeak again.  She pressed herself against the wall and crouched down beside the entryway, the strange voices getting louder, and another sound reaching her straining ears: a soft groan.

“Tapped this keg,” said the deep, smooth, unknown voice.  “Get the short-hair one ready.”

Delilah’s foot scraped against the floor as it slipped.

“What was that?” asked a second strange voice, a slightly higher timber than the first.

“What was what?  Hurry it up already.”

Delilah heard the sound of something hard connecting with something soft followed by a breathy groan.  She rolled around the entryway to the room, her adrenaline heightened senses taking in the room in one sweep: a teenage boy in a ball cap standing in the middle of a dingy kitchen, machete in hand, Dean lying on his side, unconscious, at his feet, Sam duct-taped to a chair on the other side of the counter, his head drooping as he fought against exhaustion, red tubes going from his wrists towards the floor where a second stranger in a dark green army cap crouched beside him, his back to her.

The vampire standing over Dean looked up when she walked in and his fangs descended over his teeth as he curled his lips back into a twisted smile.  “I was hoping I’d get to taste you again,” he said as he licked his lips.

The other vampire stood up, turning, as he heard his words.  Delilah took a step back as the first one, the one who had bitten her the night before, stepped over Dean’s inert body towards her.  The other one started moving towards her as well, sharp teeth visible in his open mouth, blond peach fuzz growing around his mouth and on his chin.  Delilah couldn’t think, the blood pumping in her ears, and she raised her machete, keeping her eyes on the advancing vampires.

The first one suddenly charged, leaping at her, his machete… _Dean’s machete_ , she suddenly realized, raised and aimed to swing at her head.  She ducked back, feeling the air shift from the blade slicing through it and she took a step to the side, letting the kid stumble when she was no longer where she had been a moment before.  He recovered quickly, though and re-adjusted to her new position, swinging upwards this time and nicking her own raised weapon with a jolt, sending her arm flying backwards as she gripped the quivering blade.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dean jump up from the floor and block the second vampire’s advance on her.  She didn’t have a second to spare for relief though as the vamp she was fighting swung his weapon at her again, and again she dodged.

Part of her brain registered the fighting going on in the small kitchen with her: the sounds of grunts and heaves as well as the crashing sound of broken furniture, but her attention was on the kid in front of her, slowly circling closer, a hungry smile under his cap’s visor.

She braced herself again, her stance wide, as lightning quick he swung a fist at her with his free hand.  Delilah dodged the hit, but she turned as she heard the sound of the table breaking just behind her and saw Dean on the ground.  The vamp took advantage of her distraction and jumped at her, knocking her to the ground too.  He kneeled over her, his hand around her throat.  Dean roared and knocked the vampire off her, the kid dropping the blade, but his own attacker was on him again in a second, grabbing him and throwing him against the brick wall.

Delilah turned her focus back on the kid in his baseball cap and she rolled away as he tried to stomp on her.  She used her momentum to get back up on her feet and swing her machete back, over her head and down as he straightened up into the path of her weapon, his head lopping off and landing on the ground with a sick, wet thud, rolling to the side.

No time to waste watching the body collapse, Delilah straightened up again and turned to look at what was happening in the crowded little country kitchen.  Dean was pressed back against the brick wall behind her, the blond vamp with the army cap holding the fallen machete to his throat.  Delilah’s heart skipped a beat and she took a step towards them to try to pull the creature off, but something shifted in the hunter’s face, a cold fury taking over his features as he suddenly started pushing back against the vampire… and winning.  How was he doing that? No way he matched a vamp’s strength full on like that.  Somehow he did though, and surpassed it as he kneed him in the stomach and swung him around reversing their positions.

Sam moaned quietly in his chair to her left and she looked away from Dean, rushing over to his brother to help him.  She looked at the tubes sticking out of Sam’s arms, held in place by pieces of duct tape and dangling down to a couple of mason’s jars beside him, trickling blood into them.  _They must have drained two pints already_ , she realized alarmed.  She ripped off her baseball shirt’s sleeves and wrapped them tightly around Sam’s torn arms, yanking out the tubes and tying the fabric tightly to stop the bleeding.  Sam moaned, his lidded eyes trying to focus on her, his hair falling in his face.

“Look at me,” Dean’s low growl made her turn her head and look at what was happening with him.  Dean had the machete blade against the vampire’s throat and was staring into his face intensely.  The creature had turned his head away, eyes squeezed shut in a very human-looking gesture of fear as he fought for his life.  “Look at me, bitch!” Dean yelled, making her startle.

She couldn’t look away, hypnotized by the sight before her as the vampire opened his eyes and looked right into Dean’s.  The hunter’s face turned into an inhuman snarl as he held the creature’s gaze and pressed the sharp blade against his neck in a powerful push that went right through the vamp’s spine, the head falling to the ground.  Dean stood panting a moment, staring down at the lifeless corpse, blood spattered on his face from the arterial spray, the dark look in his eyes absolutely terrifying.

“Dean,” Sam gasped out, getting both their attention.

Delilah went back to removing the duct tape around his ankles as Dean rushed over to them, dropping his weapon on the counter, and leaned over his brother’s arms to see the damage.  Sam repeated his name.  “Yeah, I know,” Dean answered roughly, sparing a quick glance at Delilah, “You wouldn’t have done the same for me.”  He reached for the duct tape on his arms and started pulling it off.

“No,” Sam forced out, sounding out of breath, “Jody.”

Delilah suddenly remembered the sheriff, realizing as she heard her name that she wasn’t anywhere in sight.  She stood up, looking into the next room, maybe for another inert body.

“I’ll get her.  Stay with him,” Dean said as he again grabbed his machete from the counter and disappeared through the kitchen entryway.

Delilah came back to Sam’s side and finished pulling the duct tape from his arms.  She reached into her boot and pulled out her silver knife and used it to cut through the many layers of tape wrapped around his chest, shoulders and the back of the chair.  She pulled it off, the glue sticking to his coat in places.  He groaned and she stood in front of him again, his head bent forward, his hair falling in his face.  She pushed back the hair, holding him and lifted his surprisingly heavy head.  His eyes were closed.  “Sam,” she said loudly, trying to wake him up again.  She shook his shoulder and he groaned, coming to.  “Come on, Sam.  Hang on.”

“Jody,” he gasped out again.

“I know Sam.  Dean’s got it covered.”

“He’ll kill Alex,” he said, starting to sound a bit more lucid although still breathy.

For a moment, Delilah couldn’t figure out why Sam would care about the lure, but then she remembered what Jody had said before getting in the car.  Pair her obstinacy with Dean’s dark look and Delilah’s stomach sank.  Sam leaned forward and nearly fell off the chair, but she grabbed him around the middle trying to push him back.

“Don’t be stupid, Sam.  You can barely move.”

The stubborn man fought her and managed to stand up, swaying on his feet.  Delilah panicked a bit seeing the colour drain out of his face; he had over a foot and a hundred pounds on her, if he fell there was nothing she could do to stop it.  She held on to him anyways, holding his waist as he leaned on her.  “Swear to God, Sam, if you fall and crush me, I swear I’m gonna fucking beat your giant ass.”  He took a step forward and Delilah could do nothing but go with him.  She wasn’t going to let him fall on his face.

It took them a good five minutes to get to the door leading to the basement stairs, Delilah feeling daunted when Sam started down.  By then though, Sam had already started improving, moving around somehow helping him to recover.  T _hat or he had super-human grade volition_ , thought Delilah, remembering how her own brain had felt like mud.  She shook her head as they half stumbled down the steep steps and into the unfinished, cement-floored basement.  Dean turned around at the noise they made as Sam fell to one knee, dragging her down with him.

“Damn it, Lilah.  What are you doing?”

“Yeah, you try forcing your idiot brother to do anything.  He’s as bad as you.”

Delilah helped him back up and Sam leaned against a support beam.  She pulled away from him and looked around at the mess.  Jody was standing above Alex, holding a bloody blade and facing the room, looking a little worse for wear, clearly favouring her left leg, bruises blossoming on her face and blood covering it again.  The girl was lying in a ball on a bed, holding her head, blood smeared around her mouth like jam on a toddler.  Dean was holding on to his blood-stained machete and though he was still staring at Delilah, his feet were firmly planted facing Jody.  There was another beheaded corpse on the ground off to the side, this one a woman with tightly curly light red hair, the head a few feet away from the collapsed body.  _Mama._ She looked back at Jody’s protective pose and knew Sam had been right.  Dean turned away from her and back at Jody.

“Move aside, Mills,” he said, clearly picking up this argument where they had left off before she and Sam had come down the stairs.

“No, Dean,” she said firmly.

“She’s been turned Jody.  She’s a fucking monster.”

“She’s just a girl!  We need to help her!”

“Dean,” said Sam from his spot leaning against the beam.  “Cure.”

A cure?  What?

“Sammy… would you shut up?  We don’t know anything about her.”

“She saved my life, Dean,” said Jody, “Are you telling me there’s a way to reverse this?”

“Yes,” said Sam pushing away from the beam, but keeping his hand on it as he swayed once more.

Dean rolled his eyes and tossed his machete aside.  Jody relaxed a little but stayed alert as he approached the bed and the writhing girl.  He sat on the edge of the mattress and grabbed the retreating girl’s head, turning her towards him maybe a little more roughly than necessary.

She snapped at him weakly with fresh new fangs, but he barely even flinched as he held her back, examining her bloodshot eyes.

“Have you fed?”  The girl groaned and he shook her, “Did you drink any blood? Answer me.”

“No,” she whined and he let her go.

“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he told the girl and Jody.  “It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker and you’re probably going to want to die long before it’s done.”  He leaned forward into her face again, “Do you understand?”  She nodded and he sighed, resigned.

He pulled a syringe of dead man’s blood from his inside coat pocket and took a step towards the girl on the bed.  Jody blocked him again, “What are you doing?” she hissed at him.

“Look, we can’t do the cure here, we have to get the hell out, burn the corpses, everything.  Dead man’s blood will knock her out long enough to get her back to the cabin.”

“But that’s blood, Dean.  Human blood.  You just said she couldn’t feed.”

“I prefer risking her than risking all our lives carrying a freshly minted vamp in the car for a couple hours!”  Jody folded her arms on her chest, glaring up at him, not backing down.  “Son of a bitch!  If you end up being the reason I die… again, I’m coming back and haunting your ass, Mills.”

He put the full syringe back in his pocket and pulled out an empty one.  He walked over to the beheaded vamp on the ground and grabbed the woman’s jacket, sitting her headless corpse up and jamming the needle in her neck.  He managed to pull out enough blood to fill the syringe.  He turned around and stalked off back up the stairs.  Jody watched him go, tight-lipped, then turned around to help up Alex.  Delilah grabbed a blanket off the bed and threw it over the girl.  “Sun’s up out there.  She might be more comfortable in the trunk.”

Jody gave her an exasperated look, then helped guide Alex up the stairs, the girl stumbling on one of the steps.  When they had disappeared from view, Delilah walked over to Sam.  “Ok, your turn big guy.”

“I’m fine to walk on my own,” he said, waving her off as he stood up unsteadily.

“Yeah, yeah, you giant baby.  Humour me.”

~

Jody sat the girl down in the back seat finally, but covered her in blankets when she complained about the light hurting her head and burning her skin.  Delilah plopped Sam in the front, putting Dean’s machete in his hand and then headed back to the house to help Dean.  He was already walking out, orange flames visible in one of the downstairs windows.  He was carrying enough weapons in his arms to fend off an army.  She took the two machetes from him and crouched down in the snow to clean them off, then wiped them on her irrevocably ruined shirt.  Dean tucked his, Sam’s and the sheriff’s guns in his belt, looking like a desperado and Delilah raised her eyebrows at him.  She was feeling tired again, the adrenaline ebbing away slowly, but Dean still looked pumped, his eyes still a little on the crazed side and she didn’t dare provoke him by ribbing him.

He walked off towards the car, stopping to open the trunk and unload the weapons, Delilah laying the blades in there too.  She was going to open the back door to sit behind the sleeping Sam, but Dean shook his head and held the driver’s door open.  She sat down and slid down the bench until she was pressed against Sam and then Dean sat down too, closing the door and starting the engine.

 _Well this is cozy_ , she thought sarcastically as she sat squeezed between the Winchesters, and she could see Dean glancing into the rear-view every few minutes to check on the deadly passenger, who seemed to be content breathing heavily under the blanket, letting out the occasional moan.

Delilah was relieved to say the least when they finally pulled up behind Sheriff Mill’s cruiser, the perennial twilight caused by the thick canopy of ancient evergreens allowing Alex to emerge from her hiding spot under the blankets.  Jody helped her into the house and disappeared.  Delilah shook Sam awake and the three of them stepped out of the car.  Sam seemed to be doing better, if still a bit groggy, and he nodded his head at his brother, tilting it away from the house.  Delilah opened the trunk and started sorting through the equipment they had just tossed in pell-mell.  Sam stopped a few feet away, and she could hear them talking in hushed tones as she looked at them, throwing them sideways glances.

“Nice work back there,” Sam said to his brother, critically, Dean frowning, “ _Look at me, bitch_?”

Dean glanced her way and she looked down, unsure how she felt about the whole situation, and part of her worried that Dean was still on edge enough to lash out.  “Well, hey,” he responded, making light of the whole thing, “You got another snappy one-liner, I’m all ears.”

Sam frowned, looking concerned, “What I’m saying is… It looked to me, like you were enjoying it.  Maybe too much.”

Delilah expected Dean to get defensive again, but what he said next disturbed her.

“And?” Sam raised his eyebrows surprised, too, and Dean pushed on, “Sorry for not putting on a hair shirt.”  Sam looked away, annoyed. “Killing things that need killing is kind of our job.”  His brother nodded, uncomfortably, looking exhausted.  Dean went on regardless, “Last I checked, taking pleasure in that is not a crime.  Now if this trial is over, I have a vampire to cure.”

Dean walked up next to her and grabbed a rolled-up cloth from the trunk, brushing up against her accidentally before turning away and heading to the house.  Delilah checked Sam and Dean’s gun clips, making sure they were still full and checking the safeties, just focusing on the post fight routine.  Sam came and stood beside her, sitting back on the car’s back bumper.  She glanced at him and he looked her over closely.  She felt shivers up her bare arms that had nothing to do with the chilly air.

“You know something about what’s going on with him,” Sam said, clearly not asking.

Delilah sighed, “It’s his business, Sam.  He’ll tell you when he’s ready.”

Sam shook his head, looking away.  “In the meantime, I’m the one stuck holding back a loose cannon.”

“I’m holding on, too, Sam,” she said, glaring at him, daring him to tell her she wasn’t.

“Yeah, and look what it’s getting you – midnight visits to my room so I can pick up the pieces.  I’m not blind Delilah.  I see what’s going on.”  He turned his head back towards her, “It wasn’t Gadreel who hit you the other day, was it?”

Delilah looked up at him, his eyes a dark teal in the weird light, flashing in anger, waiting for confirmation.  She looked away.

“You’re crazy, Sam.  I’m sorry, I disturbed you last night.  Don’t worry.  It won’t happen again.”

She turned around and stalked back towards the house.  She walked in, followed closely by Sam.  Dean was standing in the kitchen, various jars and packets spread out on the island countertop.  There was a clear red liquid in a large glass with chunks of something floating around in it.  It looked absolutely disgusting, even before he squirted the dead vampire’s blood into the mix.  He grabbed the glass, giving it a stir with a spoon before heading to the room that had been Jody’s son’s room at the cottage. Sam stood behind her as she stayed in the door frame for this, staring at the writhing vampire on the bed, Jody sitting in a rocking chair beside her, a tarp hanging over the broken window.  Dean handed the girl the glass.  “Drink,” he said roughly.  She looked at the glass and pushed his hand away.  Dean clenched his jaw and sat down on the bed, grabbing the girl in his arms as her fangs came out again.  He grabbed her nose and pinched it, pulling back her head so her mouth was open and he poured the contents of the glass into it forcefully.  Jody barely had time to get out of her chair, outraged, that he released her and stood up.  The girl on the bed looked like you’d expect someone who had been force fed something gross would look.  Dean grabbed the garbage bin beside the dresser and shoved it into her arms.

“This next bit’s not going to be pleasant, Mills,” he reminded Jody as he turned around and pushed past Delilah and Sam crowding the doorway.  Delilah turned away too and Dean disappeared back out of the cottage through the front door, taking the kit on the counter with him.  Sam shut the bedroom door before leaning against the frame, looking impossibly large.  As the sound of retching and the first screams came from the room he straightened up and looked at the closed door in the wall beside it.  He turned the handle experimentally and pushed it open, glancing inside.  He must’ve been satisfied with what he saw, because he disappeared into the gloomy interior, leaving Delilah alone in the main room.

She leaned her hands onto the back of the couch, trying to make sense of everything in her head and failing miserably.  She wanted to go see Dean, but at the same time, she was scared that he was still running off his killing high.  If the conversation he’d had with Sam was any indication, he was still raging and she’d seen… and felt what that was like.  Best to let him deal with it on his own.  She thought about Sam and remembered the poorly tended cuts on his arms where the vamps had been draining him and she walked over to and opened another door, which she figured would be the bathroom.  It only took her a minute of rummaging around before finding a well-stocked first aid kit any hunter worth his salt knew to have in this kind of secluded area.  She turned back to the main room and walked through the door Sam had gone through, without knocking.  He had removed his coat and shirts and was about to drop his pants, her makeshift bandages looking like cuffs on his bare arms.  He looked up at her when she walked in, shaking the hair out of his face, his hands on his belt buckle.

“Don’t let me stop you, Sam.  Make yourself comfortable," she said, teasing him casually like she always did.

Sam narrowed his eyes at her briefly, then went ahead and pulled down his jeans, stepping out in just his boxers as if proving a point.  Delilah raised her eyebrows at him and sat on the edge of the bed, one knee bent, opening the first aid kit and looking through it for what she would need.  Sam came to sit beside her, his long, bare legs draped over the edge of the bed, his muscles taut, regardless of his mock relaxed pose.  She marvelled again, briefly, at how fit he was, the man looking much too big for real life.  She also noticed that his anti-possession tattoo wasn’t there anymore.  She frowned and touched the scarred skin.

“Cas had to burn it off so Crowley could possess me… you know, when Gadreel… haven’t had time to get it done again.”

Delilah nodded and pulled back her hand.  The sound of painful screams was coming through the wall and she took a deep breath.

“You said the other day that you had let Dean get turned into a vampire.” She paused, and Sam looked away ashamed.  “Did he go through the cure too?”

“Yeah,” Sam said.  “But not before he took out a nest single-handed to get his maker’s blood.”  Sam was sounding impressed.

“How many vamps?” she asked.

“There were at least a dozen bodies on the ground, maybe more.”

“Does Dean know you let him get turned?”

Sam nodded his head again.  So many issues between these two.  Dean had once said that his brother had more reasons to hate him than anybody, but the more she learned about the things they had gone through, the more she thought that maybe, Dean has good reason to hate his brother too… yet he didn’t.

She reached into the first aid kit for the pair of scissors and took Sam’s hand in hers, laying his arm in her lap and cutting away the bloody fabric.  She cleaned and inspected the wound, then used butterfly closures to hold the edges of the skin together along the deep cut.  She put a gauze pad over the whole thing and wrapped more gauze around it to hold it in place, then did the same to the other arm.  When she was done, she patted Sam’s hand.  “We have to stop meeting like this.  Seems if I’m not patching you up, it’s the other way around.”

She smiled and tilted her head back to look up at him.  Sam leaned forward unexpectedly and his thin lips pressed down on hers, his left hand coming up to hold the side of her face tenderly, his right arm wrapping around her waist as she froze, confused, his soft hair brushing against her skin as he closed his eyes.  Her brain was slow to react, part of her wanting to melt into his tender embrace, seeking comfort, but this wasn’t right. She pushed back against him and Sam was already apologizing.

“I’m sorry.  God I’m so sorry, Delilah.  I don’t know what just happened there.”

He pulled his arms back, his face genuinely looking confused and upset.

“It’s okay, Sam," she said, her brain trying understand what her senses were saying had happened.  "The last couple of days have been kinda… all over the place.”

She frowned, looking away from him.  She stood up from the edge of the bed, and quickly picked up the first aid things and put them back in the kit, walking out of the room precipitously and closing the door on the entirely too confusing event.

_What the hell was that?  And why hadn’t she pushed him away immediately?  What the hell was wrong with her?  She loved Dean, she knew she did, even if he walked away when she had told him.  So why did she let his brother kiss her… And what the fuck had HE been thinking?_

Her confusion turned to anger at Sam for doing what he had done and putting her in this awkward situation in the first place.  _Wasn’t it clear she was with his brother?_   Then, she thought back to the night before and realized that maybe she was at fault too for sending mixed signals.  _Damn it._ Friendship, love, relationships… what the hell did she know about this shit?

She paced the large room, looking for something to do before she went insane.  She came across her bag and bent down to find something else to wear than her now sleeveless and blood smeared tee.  She found a long sleeved, hooded shirt and changed into it quickly, the fabric clinging to her curves flatteringly, one of the reasons she liked this top so much.  Jody came out of Alex’s room and gently closed the door behind her.  She glanced up at Delilah and smiled sadly.

“You all alone?” she asked her.

“Yeah,” said Delilah, moving into the living room and crossing her arms over her stomach in the gathering gloom, still on edge.  “Sam’s sleeping and Dean disappeared a little while ago.”

Jody nodded slowly, looking right at her, giving Delilah the impression that she was looking deep into her soul and could see all the turmoil inside.  She looked away, trying to defend against the invasive stare.  Jody headed into the kitchen and pulled a water bottle from the fridge, offering one to Delilah, who accepted thankfully, coming to stand at the counter.  They both drank, taking good gulps of the cold liquid before putting down the bottles again.  Delilah sat on a stool at the breakfast counter and folded her arms, leaning on them, unsure what to talk about with Jody, unsure if she even wanted to talk.  The state she was in, who knew what would come out.

“You know,” said Jody, breaking the silence as she leaned back against the kitchen counter and stared straight ahead at nothing, “I’ve known Sam and Dean going on five years now… and I knew Bobby long before that.” Delilah straightened up, paying closer attention to what the sheriff was saying.  _She had known Bobby?  Sam and Dean’s Bobby?_   “I’m not saying that I know everything there is to know about them, but those boys have one hell of a twisted past, what with the way their daddy raised them and everything they’ve been through.”  She kept staring straight ahead as she sipped at her water.  Why was she telling her this?  Where was she going with it?  Jody sighed, and turned her head, looking right at her.  “You need to be careful, Delilah.”

She frowned, “Careful?”

“With Dean.  There’s something unhealthy about what’s going on with you two.”

Delilah felt a little nauseous hearing some of her doubts laid bare so candidly, and on the heels of what Sam had said about Dean being a loose cannon.  But Jody was way off, she didn’t know all the things Delilah knew about the mark and what it was doing to him.

“He cares about me,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

Jody kept looking at her dead on.  “Where is he now?” she asked.  Delilah didn’t know what to answer to that one, he was cooling off?  “You could’ve died last night.  Why is he not here, taking care of you?”

Delilah found herself getting angry.  What did she know?  “He’s not always like this.”

“Like what?  Controlling? Overbearing? Yelling?”

“No!  The anger… There’s… something going on with him.  It’s making him crazy.”

“Darling,” said Jody, taking a step towards her and laying her hand on her arm.  Delilah looked down at it like she couldn’t understand what it was doing there.  “I don’t want to break it to you, but… I’ve heard all of this before.”

“From Sam, right?  Well, Sam doesn’t know everything either,” she said, her anger rising inside her, making her throat tight and she shook off Jody’s hand and stood up.

She looked sad as she pulled back, “No, Delilah.  From abused women.”

“What?” Delilah took a step back, her brain exploding into a buzz of confusion.

“ _It’s not his fault_ ,” Jody said, “ _He’s only like this when he drinks.  I made him angry, that’s why he hit me, but really, he loves me.  I know he doesn’t mean to do this_ … Dean is a violent man, so is Sam, it’s what they do, who they are.”

Delilah felt the ground under her tilt and she was dizzy, _taking pleasure in that is not a crime_ , she heard Dean say again.  She looked up at the short-hair cop with her pixie face, care and concern in her eyes and Delilah felt the rage boil up inside her.  What did she know?  She wasn’t delusional, something really WAS wrong with Dean.  The mark was slowly driving him mad, and SHE was the only thing stopping it from consuming him entirely.

“I am not,” she said, her voice strong and firm, “some useless, beaten little girl, Jody.  You can’t understand, you don’t know what’s going on.  They don’t tell you everything.”

The sheriff’s face remained patient and caring and Delilah found herself wanting to swing something at her.  “Do they tell _you_ everything?” she asked Delilah, sending her into another tailspin of doubt.  This time it was Crowley in her head – _How they expect you to survive this little drama of theirs without all the facts is beyond me_.

“Fuck this!” she finally exclaimed, “I don’t need this from a stranger!  Who do you think you are anyways?  What do you know?”

“Look,” she said, trying to soothe her, “Just know that if ever you need a place, to get away from… anything.  Just… You can always come to me, ok?  I’m sorry I upset you.”

Delilah shook her head in disbelief, get away from what? Who? “You’re crazy.  Hunting’s my life now… _Dean_ is my life.  When I want advice, or help, from someone who knows jack about shit, I’ll let you know.”

She turned around and stormed out the front door, feeling like she was going to burst, she was so angry.  She paced along the front porch a few times and tugged down her sleeves and crossed her arms over her chest as the cool breeze hit her.  She grabbed the wooden railing and leaned on it, feeling like she could just rip the wood apart.  The breeze blew her way again, and she breathed in the pine scented air and felt it calm her rage for a moment.  _The Dean I know would never hit you_ , came the angel’s voice, throwing itself into the jumbled and confused mess in her head.

“Lilah?” Dean’s voice pulled her from her thoughts and she looked up to see him standing beside the porch in his t-shirt, a pile of chopped wood in his arms, dirt streaking his bare skin.  An overwhelming need to rush into his arms and have him hold her flooded her system and she fought against it, Sam and Dean and Jody’s voices mixing with Crowley’s and Castiel’s in her head, repeating the things they had said and done, draining all her already sapped energy.  She fell to her knees on the wooden boards and leaned her arms on the banister, hiding her face, confused about what she should and should not do and worried even now that Dean would be angry with her.  She was falling apart, her mind telling her so many contradicting things about the man she loved, the only one who could make it all right, if he’d just hold her tight.  And under all the jumbled thoughts, was the growing fear that he would leave her again.  She needed to be strong, she reminded herself, she was his anchor, he needed her to keep him sane, not the other way around.

Strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her tightly.  She leaned her head on Dean’s shoulder, desperately trying to not break into a million tiny shards, but feeling the sob building up in her chest and throat regardless.  She swallowed it down and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him like he was holding her, kneeling on the wooden planks of Jody’s cottage, nestled in this ancient forest.  The breeze blew around them again as Dean shushed comfortingly in her ear.  She pulled away a little and looked into his clear green eyes, the darkness from before gone, leaving her with her Dean and the relief that flooded her was so great that she couldn’t stop it leaking out her eyes as she pressed her lips to his, the plump shape of them so familiar and comforting.  Dean held her against him and the world was right again.

Please, please just let him hold her like this forever.

 

_So close, no matter how far_

_Couldn't be much more from the heart_

_Forever trusting who we are_

_And nothing else matters_

_Oh, think twice_

_It's just another day for you,_

_You and me in paradise_

⭐

**Author's Note:**

> And... yeah. This one was hard to write. I still feel sick to my stomach. I did enjoy though playing with Dean trying to open up to Delilah about what's going on with him, and many a scene had to be re-written because I strayed too far from canon and lost the feel of season 9 Dean... but overall I think I stayed true to his character... and Sam. Poor Sam.
> 
> For those of you who don't have Spotify, here's the list of songs from the fic and their artists.  
> Another Day in Paradise - Phil Collins  
> Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd  
> Put Your Lights On - Santana feat. Everlast  
> Hold the Line - Toto  
> Darkness, Darkness - Robert Plant (Originally The Youngbloods... but totally different sound)  
> Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
> 
> Till next time - Lisy a.k.a. SoulSurvivor_36


End file.
